Izuchukwu OkosiNigeria’s Sports Minister John Enoh has given assurances that the next Super Eagles head coach will be unveiled latest in the next two weeks.
The Nigeria Football Federation are shopping for the next coach of the men’s senior national team after contractual talks over the extension of Jose Peseiro’s contract reached a dead end.
The Eagles reached the final of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’ Ivoire but lost 2-1 to the hosts.
That brilliant display at the Afcon meant that Peseiro surpassed the semifinals target set by the Nigeria Football Federation and wanted am improvement on emoluments which the NFF were not ready to meet.
Finidi George who worked as one of the assistant coaches took charge of the March friendlies against Ghana and Mali albeit recent unconfirmed reports reveal that no Nigeria coach is in the running for the job.
Enoh spoke to Channels Television in an interview monitored by Prime Business Africa.
READ ALSO: NFF Announces Jose Peseiro As New Super Eagles Head Coach
“What I can assure is the senior national team will have a new coach in the next one week or at most two weeks,” Enoh disclosed.
“Unfortunately, the senior national team doesn’t have a coach. We played two friendlies and had just Finidi George oversee those two matches.
“The first responsibility of getting a coach lies with the NFF and I have been in touch with the NFF because I think Nigerians didn’t expect that after AFCON and after the contract with coach Peseiro came to an end and wasn’t renewed, that it will take as long and not have a coach yet.
The sports minister stressed that the 2026 World Cup qualification is not negotiable after the stuttering start last year.
“The campaign for the next World Cup has started and we didn’t start well, it was a shaky one and therefore there’s a lot of mileage to cover,” Enoh.
“We didn’t qualify for the last World Cup and can’t afford not to be at the next edition.”
The Super Eagles drew their first two FIFA World Cup qualifiers with Lesotho and Zimbabwe and will face the Bafana Bafana of South Africa and Squirrels of Benin Republic in their next qualifying games in June.
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.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
