Out of contract coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Jose Peseiro has killed the aspiration of the duo of Austine Eguavoen and Salisu Yusuf, who have been scheming to replace him as coach of the senior national team of Nigeria, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Eguavoen held the role in interim capacity as the technical director of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) following the sacking of Gernot Rohr as coach of the team in December of 2021. He led the team to the Africa Cup of Nations, where they were knocked out in the round of 16 by Tunisia.
Under his guide , the team also failed to make it to the World Cup after losing to Ghana in the play off on away goals rule, he is however still holding his position and has used his relationship within the system to put himself up as an option for the job.
Yusuf who was disgraced three years ago when he was filmed collecting bribe by an undercover reporter posing as a football agent. He returned to the set up and under his leadership the Nigeria U23 team failed to qualify for the U23 Africa Cup of Nations and the CHAN team also didn’t make it.
Despite that he is said to be in the good books of the powers that be in the NFF and has been fingered as a possible option for the job but like Eguavoen, the president of the NFF Ibrahim Musa Gusau is wary of a possible public backlash in the event that any of the duo fail to deliver.
The third option was the present assistant coach of the team Finidi George, who won the Nigeria Professional Football League title with Enyimba. A highly placed board member of the NFF is said to be pushing for him to be handed the role but Gusau isn’t convinced yet especially with Enyimba’s failure in the African continent were they were knocked out of the CAF Champions League by Libyan side Al Ahly Benghazi.
For that reason the president of the NFF returned to the negotiation table with Peseiro, who we exclusively gathered has now accepted to take a pay cut to continue in his role. Reports say he will arrive Nigeria on Friday for preparation for the dead rubber AFCON qualifiers game against Sao Tome and Principe.
He will now earn around $25,000 a month, the same amount former coach of the team Gernot Rohr was getting but a huge slash on his pay of $70,000 a month deal signed by the previous board of the NFF under the guide of Amaju Pinnick.
Damian Waziri
