The hierarchy of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has settled for a foreigner to be the next coach of the senior national team of Nigeria, OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively reveal.
Nigeria are on the lookout for another coach following the contract expiration of Jose Peseiro who led the team to a second place finish at the Africa Cup of nations in Cote d’Ivoire. Nigeria were beaten 1-2 by the host in the final.
Peseiro announced his decision to not take up the option of extending his deal, despite meeting the target of getting to the semi final of the tournament, which guarantees him an extension of his deal.
His exit made the NFF to declare the position vacant and called for interested candidate to submit their applications. So far around 40 foreign coaches and over 50 indigenous coaches applied for the role.
We can exclusively reveal that the job won’t be given to an indigenous coach, with the NFF not convinced by the pedigree and standing of all of them who showed interest in the job.
“I have nothing against indigenous coaches, but I will say that the person we need at the moment is a foreign coach with the prerequisite experience to handle the Super Eagles. He must be the type of coach who will come and support in the overall development of our football”, a member of the technical committee was quoted as saying by the online edition of Abuja based newspaper Leadership.
“The Super Eagles as presently constituted are too big for the indigenous coaches that Nigerians are clamouring for. They are not bad coaches, but they are not yet at the level that they can effectively handle the senior national team.
“If you talk to most of my colleagues in the committee, they will tell you the same thing. Most of us are for a foreign coach for the Super Eagles. I believe the NFF will see reason with some of us on this matter,” the very influential member of the NFF Technical Committee said.
Meanwhile we exclusively gathered that Finidi George who will take charge of team in their upcoming friendly games against Ghana and Mali respectively will be a part of the technical crew, but as one of the assistants and a role as the coach of the home based team popularly called CHAN Eagles will likely be handed to him.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
