Johannesburg  - The South African football federation Tuesday denied reports of immediate plans to replace Joel Santana with fellow Brazilian Carlos Albert Parreiro as Bafana Bafana head coach.

SA Football Association (SAFA) president Kirstin Nematandani said instead the federation has given Santana three more matches to sort out his problems with the national squad.

Nematandani denied media reports that SAFA had spoken to or had immediate plans to replace Santana with Parreira after Tuesday's friendly international against Iceland in Reykjavik.

"I have never spoken to Parreira about returning to coach Bafana. Why should I?" Nematandani told Sapa news agency.

"We employed a three-man technical committee to assess Bafana and how could we talk to Parreira before that three-man committee had even started their work?"

Santana took over from Parreira last June after the former World Cup winner quit as Bafana head coach, citing his wife's illness.

South Africa have lost seven of their last eight matches. The only win was a 1-0 defeat last month of Madagascar.(dpa)