Christian Chukwu (MON), erstwhile Super Eagles coach has changed the Nigeria Football Federation to hire a quality coach for the Super Eagles regardless of the nationality.
Chukwu made the statement in an interview with SOKOnnect on Thursday, while dwelling on Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2022 World Cup billed for Qatar and the need for a quality coach saying, “whether foreign or local coach” should not be an issue,.
According to Chukwu who captained Nigeria to its first Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) glory in 1980, “This a time NFF that is charge of Nigeria football administration should take its time and get a very good coach to handle the Super Eagles without minding where he comes from.”
He emphasised, “Nigeria needs a very good coach who will stay in the country and be part of the domestic league; a coach that will help to build up Nigeria football locally and cut down the over reliance on foreign players.”
“The last squad that was not able to go far in the Nations Cup in Cameroon and also failed to qualify for the World Cup, was purely foreign squad which Gernot Rohr assembled; there was no home-based player among because Rohr didn’t know them – Rohr was not leaving in Nigeria, he only come when there’s match and so, doesn’t know anything about the local players ,” he explained.
Against this backdrop, Chukwu who has a rich coaching credential and was an assistant coach to Clemence Westerhof in the Tunisia’94 Nigeria victory, exempted Austin Eguavoen from blame in the Qatar 2022 woes and slammed the players.
“Eguavoen has no blame in Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the coming World Cup in Qatar at all; I blame the players who were not committed, because they have all the opportunities to defeat Ghana – they didn’t take their chances, both home and away,” he concluded.
The NFF however,has decided to go for a foreign coach which it promised Nigerians would be announced in no distant future.
