The race for who will be the next coach of the senior national team of Nigeria will go down to the wire next month when a decision is expected to be made by the technical committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively reveal.
Already a seven man shortlist which constitutes three indigenous and four foreign coaches has been drawn up by the committee ahead of interview for the post, which was made vacant by the departure of Jose Peseiro who led the team to a second spot finish at the AFCON. He left after the expiration of his contract as coach last month.
Despite having the shortlist, the NFF were willing to go out of it, and get a coach which was why they approached Hervé Renard the incumbent coach of the women national team of France as revealed by France based news outlet L’equipe.
The move was made possible after a representative of the coach contacted a top shot of the NFF to intimate them of the interest of the coach in taking over the vacant managerial role of the Super Eagles, to keep alive his dream of going to a third world cup.
However the major stumbling block is that he will only be free for the Super Eagles job after the Paris 2024 Olympics, which runs from the 26th of July to the 11th of August. Around which the Super Eagles would have played their next two games in the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
We gathered that the NFF are speeding up the process of having a coach in place before the resumption of the qualifiers effectively ruling out Renard, who led the Zambia national team and that of Cote d’Ivoire to AFCON glory in 2012 and 2015 respectively.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
