Head coach of the U19 team of the United States of America Micheal Nsien has confirmed that he turned down the chance to be one of the assistants of the newly appointed coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Finidi George, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
The newly appointed coach was given the honour of picking his assistants with the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) suggesting one of the trio of Emmanuel Amuneke, Daniel Amokachi or Nisien to work with him. All three applied for the post just like Finidi.
Finidi like we exclusively reported rejected the duo of Amuneke and Amokachi and went ahead to hold talks with Nsien. However the talks didn’t go as planned as the coach who is presently employed as head coach of the U19 of America insisted on having a proper contract better than what he has with the USA.
Meanwhile, the NFF already told Finidi that any of his assistants will be on pay per match bonus and Nsien flatly rejected the proposal when it was put to him by the former Super Eagles coach. He confirmed rejecting the role in an interview with Punch.
“Yes they (NFF) approached me. They cannot meet my salary requirements,” Nsien told The PUNCH but we however gathered that the coach who still has two year on his deal with the USA was approached by Finidi and not the NFF.
Following his rejection of the role, Finidi submitted a list of five as his assistants consisting of three foreign coaches and two indigenous coaches in Daniel Amokachi and Abideen Baruwa for the role of second assistant coach and goalkeeper trainer respectively.
His first assistant will be a German-Nigerian coach, while his match analyst and physical trainers are all foreigners who will be in the country next week to resume ahead of their first assignment which will be the world cup qualifiers game against South Africa next month.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
