Posted by BBC News on
The chairman of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) has accused French coach Philippe Troussier of being unprofessional, after turning down a chance to manage the national team.
The chairman of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) has accused French coach Philippe Troussier of being unprofessional, after turning down a chance to manage the national team.
"By rejecting a job he had previously accepted is unprofessional and it only shows he is afraid of what is ahead," said Ibrahim Galadima.
"No one dragged him into it because he attended an interview with our panel in London and was given all assurances on his terms of working with us."
Troussier declined the job, telling BBC Sport that he wanted to have a knee operation in September which would rule him out of the job.
He also gave Nigeria's Super Eagles only a 10 percent chance of qualifying for the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany.
Galadima said the NFA had begun the search for another foreign coach.
"Life has to continue and we'd like to hire another foreigner to coach our national team.
"We have World Cup qualifying matches against Algeria and Zimbabwe left and we need a coach to take charge of the situation."
Nigeria trail Angola in their qualifying Group Four from which only the top team will go through to Germany.
It is not the first time that a coach selected to manage Nigeria has had a dramatic encounter with the country's football authorities.
In 1995, Carlos Alberto Torres, Brazil's 1970 World Cup winning captain, signed a contract to coach Nigeria at a public ceremony in Lagos.
He then asked for a one-week holiday to travel to Brazil before taking up the job. But he never returned to Nigeria.