The technical committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) are currently stuck when it comes to making a decision on who will be the new coach of the senior national team, OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively reveal.
Nigeria have been without a substantive coach since the exit of Jose Peseiro upon the expiration of his contract in February. In his absence one of his assistants Finidi George handled the team in interim capacity in the friendly games against Ghana and Mali respectively.
NFF received lot of applications from coaches interested in the job and held a meeting today on the very important matter with the world cup qualifiers set to resume in June. However no decision was reached.
We gathered there are forces in high places who have hijacked the process entirely, making it difficult for the technical committee to take a unified stand on if they should go for an indigenous coach or a foreign coach.
While most members of the committe are leaning towards a foreign coach, powers that are beyond their control want the broad to bend over and hand the job to an indigenous coach, which will most likely be Emmanuel Amunike.
However that has met stiff resistance from key personalities in the committe, who are wary of the dangers in appointing a coach on sentimental grounds, which could jeopardize the chances of making it to the 2026 World Cup.
One member warned that it was the senseless decision to let Gernot Rohr leave that cost them a ticket to the last world cup to a large extent. A middle ground hasn’t been found as at the time of this report.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
