Posted by Everest Onyewuchi on
Sponsor of the Nigeria Football Association, Globacom Limited, has withdrawn its decision to bear the cost of hiring a foreign coach for the Super Eagles following Phillippe Troussier's rejection of the appointment offered him by the association.
Sponsor of the Nigeria Football Association, Globacom Limited, has withdrawn its decision to bear the cost of hiring a foreign coach for the Super Eagles following Phillippe Troussier's rejection of the appointment offered him by the association.
Globacom, the second national telecommunication carrier, had as part of its sponsorship deal with the NFA opted to pay the wages of a European coach that would manage the senior national team, especially with the uncertainty surrounding Nigeria's qualification for the Germany 2006 World Cup.
The company's patronage spurred the NFA to interview three candidates in London on July 16 and 17, which led to the selection of Troussier, the Frenchman that first managed the Super Eagles in 1997.
Our correspondent learnt authoritatively on Tuesday that with Troussier's rejection of the offer made to him, Globacom was no longer interested in supporting the NFA financially to go for another foreign coach.
'The support promised the NFA towards hiring a foreign coach has been suspended, at least for now," a reliable Globacom insider told our correspondent on Tuesday, a few hours after Troussier's latest decision was reported.
Our correspondent was also told that Globacom would now wait and see whether the indigenous technical crew assembled by the NFA to tinker the Super Eagles could secure the World Cup ticket for Nigeria.
It was further gathered that Troussier made impossible demands during the interview in London that would have made him ineligible, but was nonetheless penciled down for the Eagles' job ahead of the other candidates because of the personal intervention of Globacom's chairman, Dr. Mike Adenuga (Jnr.) in his favour.
Although the NFA chairman, Ibrahim Galadima, did not disclose the contract package when he announced last Saturday in Akure that Troussier had bagged the job, it was learnt that the former Burkina Faso, South Africa and Japan manager was offered a two-year contract worth $900,000 per annum.
SATURDAY PUNCH, July 30, 2005