Posted by Oluwole Josiah, Abuja on
Following the directive by the Minister of Sports and Social Development, Saidu Samaila, halting the further search for a foreign coach, the Nigeria Football Association has indicated that it would give the needed support for the Eguavoen-led coaching crew to ensure Super Eagles qualification for the World Cup.
Following the directive by the Minister of Sports and Social Development, Saidu Samaila, halting the further search for a foreign coach, the Nigeria Football Association has indicated that it would give the needed support for the Eguavoen-led coaching crew to ensure Super Eagles qualification for the World Cup.
The Chairman of NFA, Ibrahim Galadima, told our correspondent in a telephone interview on Sunday that the directive was not new, as two of such directives by the former sports minister, Col. Musa Muhammed, had interrupted the search for a foreign coach.
Samaila formerly put an end to the foreign coach saga on Friday, after considering the embarrassment from Philippe Troussier, who turned down the offer to coach the Super Eagles after he was picked by NFA.
According to the minister's spokesman, Charles Chikezie, the minister wanted an end to the distractions caused by the appointment of a foreign coach.
He said the local coaches should now be allowed to concentrate on working out a stategy to qualify Nigeria for the World Cup in Germany.
According to Galadima, the FA will meet the local coaches on Tuesday to receive their programmes and deliberate on the plans for the remaining two matches.
He said the coaches would be given the needed support to carry out the task, adding that there was no time the coaches were relegated while the FA searched for a foreign coach.
He added that the minister's order to rest the search for a foreign coach would be heeded as the FA had always done, noting that its insistence on a foreign coach was for the benefit of the nation's football.
'The directive to stop the employment of the coach should have come earlier than now. We were stopped and again told to continue; now again we have been asked to stop. But we should not have wasted so much time if we knew we would not be allowed to carry it out," he said.
The PUNCH, Monday, August 1, 2005