The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Ibrahim Gusau, has confirmed that the process that will lead to the announcement of a new head coach for the Super Eagles is almost at the stage.
Gusau said the NFF was being meticulous about the choice of coach for the senior national team in order to get the best person for the job so that Nigerians won’t query the final choice upon announcement.
He said the body had sealed the deal with Bruno Labbadia as the Eagles coach before meddlesomeness on the part of the agent with unreasonable demands scuttled the effort but noted that the new coach being considered will take the Eagles to the next level.
“Getting a coach for the Super Eagles is a process but along the line, we began a process and almost concluded. We reached an agreement but later the middlemen scuttled the arrangement with demands that we never agreed to,” Gusau told NFF TV. “We cannot sit down and engage our country into something people will start raising questions that will be difficult to answer. We are almost done about it and we will do our best to ensure that by the time we come up with a coach it is going to be a coach that will take us to the level we should be.”
Meanwhile, Gusau has defended recent national team coaching appointments, adding merit is the major factor considered by the football house.
He said interim coach of the Super Eagles, Austin Eguavoen , was given the leeway to appoint those he would work it and that the NFF Technical Director opted for the choice of Rangers International FC’s Fidelis Ilechukwu and Daniel Ogunmodede of Remo Stars who he affirmed were the two best young coaches currently in the league.
“When we gave Augustine Eguavoen the chance to manage the Super Eagles on interim basis, he decided to go for those that we claim to be the young and best coaches in the league, Fidelis Ilechukwu of Rangers and Daniel Ogunmodede of Remo Stars and no one can dispute it because we know they deserve to be there,” Gusau said.
He insisted that the appointment of Aliyu Zubairu was based on the recommended of the NFF’s Technical and Development Committee.
“We have a coach in the Under 20. We looked at merit and we gave the technical committee an opportunity to look at what who is best suited for the position based on current form and the one to give us what we want. The committee decided to bring in Aliyu Zubairu as coach who is the head coach of El Kanemi Warriors that led the team to the President’s Federation Cup title while they were in the second division,” Gusau continued.
” They also qualified to the NPFL and everybody is seeing the performance of his boys in the topflight. When the committee ruled he would be in charge, we didn’t dispute it.”