TheCable

Amaju Pinnick, president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has defended the preference of Gernot Rohr, Super Eagles head coach, to work from abroad.

Rohr, who was appointed as Eagles head coach in 2016, has recently attracted a wave of backlash from critics who blamed his refusal to live in Nigeria as the reason they are no locally-based players in the national team.

Reacting to the development in a chat with Arise TV on Monday, Pinnick said although the contract signed by the Franco-German stated that he should live in Nigeria, he is allowed to work from overseas since he heads “the team that monitors and talk to our players and their teams backroom staff and their coaches.”

The NFF president added that Rohr’s status as an “ex-international” helps with the monitoring process.

“We have a contract with Gernot Rohr to live Nigeria, and he’s not been antagonistic to that. I’m not going to defend him when I don’t need to defend him,” Pinnick said.

“But most of our players live outside the shores of the country, and what we do right now is that he is at the head of the monitoring team that monitors and talks to our players and their teams backroom staff and their coaches.

“Because he’s an ex-international himself, he has relationships with most of their coaches. These are some of the things people don’t know.”