Head coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Jose Peseiro is at loggerheads with the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) over the number of players that will be in Super Eagles final squad for the Africa Cup of Nations, OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively reveal.
CAF allows team to name 27 players for the tournament but only 23 will be registered on matchdays. Teams are however permitted to name less than 27 players.
That option is what Peseiro wants and he has decided to drop two players from the 27 players he wanted to take to the training camp in Dubai in preparation for the tournament.
NFF on their part are insisting that the coach takes 27 players but he is adamant that 25 players will give him enough time to work on the team, because it will be easy to manage considering that the tournament is for a month.
It isn’t the first time that the Portuguese coach has gone against the wishes of his employers as he also did the same thing with the provisional list of players, where he named 40 players instead of the 50 permitted by CAF.
That decision meant outfield players from teams in the Nigeria Professional Football League were asee from the list, as well as players like Chuba Akpom, Jerome Akor and Ifeanyi Matthew.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
