By George Aluo
Salisu Yusuf who was last week shortlisted alongside two foreign coaches for the Super Eagles coaching job may have lost out, no thanks, to the sponsorship deal secured by the nation’s soccer governing body, NFF.
A competent NFF technical comittee source disclosed yesterday that Yusuf who had before now managed the Eagles in an interim capacity was included on the three-coach shortlist as Plan B.
According to our source, the NFF would have settled for Yusuf if she failed to secure a sponsor that would bankroll the salary of a foreign manager.
It would be noted that the soccer federation had made a break through in her quest for a sponsor as the nation’s oil corporation, NNPC accepted to pick up the bills of a foreign manager.
NNPC would be splashing $1.5m on the cash strapped NFF.
“With the money we are getting from NNPC, the coast is clear for us to hire a foreign coach and that means Yusuf is out of it. The best he can get is for him to accept to be one of the Nigerian coaches that would be attached to the team.”
Our source stressed that at least two Nigerian coaches would be in the Eagles technical crew, in spite of the fact that the would be foreign coach is expected to come with his assistant.
The NFF is billed to interview and name a new coach for the Eagles on July 18.
Manu drops three more players over age cheating
By Judith Nwabia
The hope of three players making new Golden Eaglets team came crashing on Monday as they were sent packing from the team to face Niger next month in the race to be at the next U-17 Africa Youth Championship.
According to owngoal.com, the trio fell victims of the drive of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to curb the menace of age cheats in Nigerian football as they were found to be in possession of more than one international passport with different dates.
The Golden Eaglets’ screening is currently on in Abuja ahead of their clash against Niger next month.
“Three of the players were dropped due to issues bothering on having more than one passport, as a matter of fact with different dates. We discovered very late but still we have to let them go despite their relevance to us” A team official told Owngoalnigeria.com.
The source also revealed that head coach of the team Manu Garba had penciled down a number of teams, they will engage in friendly games starting from this month.
“We will start playing friendly games from this month to see how far we have come with the team, it has been intense but just like we said, screening is still on as our method still remains elimination by substitution”.