Izuchukwu Okosi
The Sports Ministry and the leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation have unanimously agreed to terminate the appointment of Franco-German Gernot Rohr who has been in charge of the Super Eagles as head coach for five years.
Sports minister Sunday Dare and NFF president Amaju Melvin Pinnick rose from their closed door meeting in Abuja and elected to sack the coach whose coaching philosophy has drawn the ire of Nigerian football faithful.
Prime Business Africa scooped from sources close to the NFF boss who on Thursday marked his 51st birthday that the meeting which also has in attendance General-Secretary of the NFF, Mohammed Sanusi as well as the Parmanent Secretary in the Sports Ministry, Isma’il Abubakar and Chief of staff to the minister, Abba Yola took a look at three critical agendas.
Firstly, the men focused on the true situation on the contract of embattled Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr with sources which pleaded anonymity claiming that the head coach Rohr would be sacked.
Interestingly, it is gathered that there was no severance package inserted in the new contract signed between the NFF and Rohr in June 2020 when his initial deal came to an end.
The meeting also concentrated on the review of the World Cup Qualifier technical report as the Super Eagles gear up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup playoffs in March 2022.
The meeting also looked at preparation for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations to be held in Cameroon in January 2022.
Rohr is hoping to lead the Super Eagles to the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations and go one better after the team’s third place finish in the 2019 Afcon hosted by Egypt.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
