Mali coach Patrice Carteron signs a deal to take over at TP Mazembe

Frenchman Patrice Carteron has signed a two-year deal to coach DR Congo side TP Mazembe.

He is set to take over charge of the former African Champions after Mali's 2014 World Cup qualifiers against Rwanda and Benin next month.

However, the Mali Football Federation insists the 42-year-old, who led The Eagles to third place at this year's Africa Cup of Nations, is still under contract with them.

"We consider Patrice Carteron the coach of Mali," the MFF president Hamadoun Kola Cisse said in a French radio interview.

"He is under contract to us until next year but by going and signing another contract he exposes himself to sanction."

Mazembe, who have won the African Champions League twice in the last four years, are financed by Moise Katumbi, who is also governor of the copper-rich Katanga province.

The club boast an expensively assembled squad that includes internationals from Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe as well as the DR Congo.

They are are making the coaching change after their surprise early elimination from this year's African Champions League, a result which led to Senegal coach Lamine Ndiaye offering to resign before being made technical director.

Mazembe are now on course for the group stages of the second-tier Confederation Cup competition after Sunday's 4-0 win over Liga Muculmana of Mozambique in the first leg of a play-off tie.

Mali share top place with Algeria in Group H with six points from three matches at the halfway stage of the African World Cup qualifiers.