"We are currently in talks with several coaches of international repute. The matter should be settled by June 7, when the team returns after a mid-season break," Sergei Fursenko said, adding that talks were being conducted with five candidates.
On April 3, Zenit St. Petersburg sacked head coach Vlastimil Petrzela after a disappointing run of results in the Premier League. Assistant coach Vladimir Borovicka took temporary charge of the team.
"I am 99.9% sure that [a new coach] will be a foreign national," club press attache Andrei Tanner said earlier.
"Our priority is the development of national soccer so the main requirement for a new head coach is that he should be ready to become closely involved in this," the president said.
Zenit has had a disappointing start to the season and is currently in ninth place in the league with 8 points from six games.
Czech coach Petrzela was appointed Zenit's head coach in December 2002. In his first season he led the team to a second-place finish in the Premier League. This season he took the club to the quarterfinals of the UEFA Cup, Europe's second club competition, for the first time in its history, before losing 5-2 on aggregate to Spain's Sevilla.
Petrzela became the second premier league's coach to be sacked in a week following the departure of Spartak Moscow head coach Alexander Starkov.
