The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has taken the first step towards sacking the head coach of the senior national team of Nigeria after yesterday’s defeat to Benin Republic, OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively report.
It means the Super Eagles will likely drop to bottom of their group in the world cup qualifiers if Zimbabwe gets a good result against South Africa later today. They are presently 5th on the log and without a win in four games in the series.
Finidi who replaced Jose Peseiro as the substantive coach of the team signed a one year deal with the option of another year based on qualifying for the next AFCON and getting to the semi finals.
With the qualifiers for the world cup now on hold till March next year , the job of the coach still isn’t safe because he could be fired in September if they falter in the AFCON qualifiers.
” Even Finidi knows his future is tied to the game in September. He can’t say we didn’t give him the support he needed because he got everything but didn’t make the best of it. He probably won’t be here when the qualifiers for the world cup resumes”, a board member of the NFF said.
Asked how the football house arrived at the choice of the coach, he revealed that there was no interview for him to get the job, despite the loads of applications they received when the job was made public following the exit of Peseiro.
” We didn’t interview anybody. The decision to appoint Finidi was taken by the president of the NFF and not even the technical committee recommended him. Nobody interviewed Finidi that is why it was after his announcement that terms were agreed for his release from Enyimba and his wages plus assistants”.
Speaking on if the NFF have any coach in mind in the event of the sacking of the coach , he said that won’t be an issue because there are coaches who should have been appointed but cash made it impossible. ” Those who said no money for foreign coach won’t say so anymore now that we are in a precarious situation. Finidi is still the coach but I don’t know for how long”, he concluded.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
