THE Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is now banking on a sum of $1.5 million from a sponsor to cover the salaries of a new foreign coach for the country, AfricanFootball.com has specially gathered.
The cash is expected this week and if it came through, Nigeria could appoint a new coach as early as next week, AfricanFootball.com further learnt.
The NFF is broke and the sports ministry has made it abundantly clear the government will not help out with paying for an expatriate coach.
The nation’s soccer ruling body is known to have sounded out a bank and an oil company to pay for the new coach, who will lead Nigeria through a difficult 2018 World Cup qualifying group that has Algeria, Cameroon and Zambia.
It would be recalled that a major telephone company bankrolled the salaries of German coach, Berti Vogts between 2007 and 2008, while a presidential task force was responsible for the salaries of the country’s last foreign coach, Lars Lagerback, for the 2010 World Cup.
Interim coach, Salisu Yusuf, according to the NFF technical committee chairman, Chris Green is jostling for the plum job alongside former Cameroon coach, Le Guen, Serbian Goran ‘Plavi’ Stevanovic and former Kano Pillars Slovenian coach, Ivo Sajh, among others.
and then