Julius Okorie
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has official confirmed that Technical Director of the Glass House and former international, Austin Eguavoen, is to take charge of the Eagles in the double header qualifiers against Benin and Rwanda.
The decision became necessary after the deal between German Coach, Bruno Labbadia and NFF, crashed over stringent tax issues, which would have made the NFF pay taxes both in Nigeria and in Germany for the former Stuttgart handler.
Join our WhatsApp Channel“We have been on the tax issue for the past three days, and I told him clearly that there was no way the NFF will agree to offset the concomitant tax percentage on his salary that will be demanded by German tax authorities,” NFF President, Ibrahim Gusau, said in a statement on Friday.
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“It is not possible for us to shoulder the responsibility of shelling out another money, between 32 per and 40 per cent of his salary, after paying the agreed monthly wage.
“The NFF and Mr. Labbadia reached an agreement in principle before we made the announcement that he would become the head coach of the Super Eagles. The tax details were never part of our discussions, and he had personally agreed to all terms before the tax issue came up. We were doing our best to be flexible in the discussions, but he was adamant that the NFF had to pay the full tax amount as well. We simply cannot do that.”
Labbadia’s decision comes seven days before Nigeria’s 2025 AFCON qualifiers against the Benin Republic, leaving the NFF to turn to Eguavoen.
“In the event, Technical Director of Nigeria Football Federation, Coach Augustine Eguavoen, will now take charge of the Super Eagles for the upcoming 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches against Benin Republic (Uyo, September 7) and Rwanda (Kigali, September 10),” the statement added.
It will be Eguavoen’s fourth stint in charge of the three-time African champions, after earlier experience in 2005-2007, 2010 and 2022.
He was in charge of the ill-fated 2022 World Cup qualifier playoff between Nigeria and Ghana, in which the Super Eagles missed the ticket to Qatar.
Julius Okorie is Chief Sports and Entertainment Correspondent for Prime Business Africa. He began his journalism career with the Champion Newspaper and Sporting Champion and later moved on to Daily Independent and the Nation Newspapers. Okorie joined Prime Business Africa in 2024 bringing on board 20 years of experience in writing investigative news on Sports and Entertainment. His well researched and highly informative articles on Sports Business and general entertainment are followed by a wide range of audience.
