The Nigerian football governing body, Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, and the Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung, are scheduled to meet on Tuesday (today) in Abuja, The Punch reports.
Top on the meeting’s agenda include the federation’s decision to hire a Frenchman as the next coach of the Super Eagles.
Immediately the Eagles crashed out of Gabon 2017 qualifiers, the NFF President, Amaju Pinnick announced that the football governing body had almost concluded the process of employing a foreigner to replace Sunday Oliseh, who resigned from the post in February.
“We have also scheduled a larger meeting with the sports minister on Tuesday (today) which will help determine the way forward,” he added.
He further revealed to newsmen that the meeting would decide the future as they embark on some reforms and concentrate on the 2018 World Cup qualifiers starting later this year.
Dalung said yesterday that he had not been briefed on the proposal of hiring a foreign coach for the Eagles.
Dalung, who spoke on a SuperSport programme, hinted his support for local coaches, but added that he would agree with the hiring of the coach if he was convinced of the need for such.
He said, “The issue of the foreign coach has dominated the air but personally and as a minister in charge of a ministry, I have not received any report from anybody that our football problem is coaching and that we need a foreign coach to solve it.
“We have players that have played in the past and even brought honours for us and yet if we are unable to develop our own game according to our country’s tradition, then certainly I will have to be convinced with a superior argument that the only way out is a foreign coach.
“There have also been a lot of speculations and complaints by the local coaches that some of them have not been paid. Now if we have not been able to pay Nigerian coaches, is it a foreign coach that we will be able to pay?
“The hiring of a foreign coach should not be by verbal agreement because if we do such, we are also destroying the prestige of the Nigerian coaches. It will be a case of dumping them, after we have used them which is not good. I believe in Nigeria and I believe we should learn from the mistakes we have made,” he concluded.
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