Dan Petrescu has claimed that he was offered the Nottingham Forest but turned it down because of the length of the contract.
The former Chelsea full-back was closely linked with the City Ground job prior to Stuart Pearce's sacking but the Championship club instead hired former Bolton and Crystal Palace manager Dougie Freedman.
Petrescu, who has managerial experience with such clubs as Wisla Krakow, Kuban Krasnodar and Dynamo Moscow, told Romanian website DigiSport that he was close to accepting Forest's offer only to turn down the contract at the last minute because they only wanted him for the rest of the current campaign.
"Everyone knows that I had offers from Nottingham," Petrescu said.
"I had a clear offer, but the terms of the contract were not what I wanted. And the people there did not want to negotiate much.
"I wanted quickly, without discussing and (they) said we need to talk. So I talked about more, they decided to choose another coach.
"Let's say that everything was 99 per cent done, at one time I was ready to get my ticket to go to London.
"I think Nottingham is a team that suits me. I was offered the job but I turned it down. I loved the club, but couldn't sign for only three months."
