TheCable

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and Sunday Dare, minister of youths and sports development, are currently at loggerheads over the choice of Super Eagles’ new head coach, TheCable has learnt.

An insider within NFF informed TheCable that the federation’s board has “already decided on Jose Peseiro” but Dare refused to give “the go-ahead.”

The federation had, in December 2021, announced Peseiro as the permanent replacement for the sacked Gernot Rohr.

However, it made a U-turn after the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Cameroon and appointed Austin Eguavoen.

Eguavoen then resigned after the Eagles failed to qualify for the Qatar 2022 World Cup while the rest of the technical crew was dissolved, leading to a renewed search for a new head coach.

The source revealed that NFF has “already agreed a 2-year deal” with Peseiro but the minister is hindering the contract.

“The NFF exco members already decided on Jose Peseiro as the Super Eagles coach, but the minister is not in support of the board’s choice for the team,” the source told TheCable.

“Peseiro and the federation already agreed a 2-year deal, but for whatever reason, the minister is not giving the go-ahead for the NFF to employ him or make the announcement.”

With the Eagles are grouped alongside Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and either Sao Tome and Principle or Mauritius for the 2023 AFCON qualifiers, the source said he hopes a resolution could be reached before the qualification kicks off.

“The 2023 AFCON qualifiers will be kick-started in about five weeks or thereabout, and we do not have a coach yet,” the insider said.

“Giving the situation on the ground, by now, the coach should have been named and be ready to work. As we have a lot of work to do.

“We just hope that it won’t be a last-minute announcement. We need to stop the fire brigade approach of doing things for us to achieve results.”