President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick, has exclusively confirmed to The PUNCH that a new head coach for the country’s senior national team will be announced latest Thursday.
The Super Eagles have been without a full-time manager since December 2021, following the sacking of Gernot Rohr.
There has been an outcry over the delayed appointment of a coach for the team, with the 2023 AFCON qualifiers set to begin next month, but Pinnick confirmed the Eagles would get a new coach latest Thursday, after meeting with sports minister, Sunday Dare, on Monday.
Reports say officials of the NFF are keen on signing Portuguese Jose Peseiro, who previously coached Venezuela, while the ministry wants more coaches interviewed for the job, to select the best for the three-time African champions.
“The outcome of the meeting with the minister was very good and cordial,” Pinnick told The PUNCH.
“All the minister wants is fair play and not just Peseiro, he wants us to weigh other options and we will be announcing the new Eagles coach latest by Thursday
“I don’t know who that will be yet, because we are talking to many of them and we’ve had zoom meetings with them.”
While it was learnt that Peseiro is the leading candidate for the job, several other big names like former Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde, ex-PSG and France coach Laurent Blanc, former PSV Eindhoven manager Phillip Cocu and former Sampdoria and Cagliari manager Walter Zenga, have all been touted as possible candidates for the vacant Eagles head coach position.
Mike Cookey