keep Amodu
NFF keep Amodu
Posted: 2010-02-05 22:42

Shuaibu Amodu was on Friday demoted to the position of coach of the Super Eagles home-based team, after a stormy meeting of the NFF board.

Luis van Gaal, Guus Hiddink, Bruno Metsu, Peter Taylor and Ratomir Djukovic are the five shortlisted candidates to replace Amodu and take the Super Eagles to the World Cup.

The Federal Government, through the Presidential Task Force (PTF) and the Sports Ministry will foot the bills for the employment of the new Technical Adviser.

The NFF's Technical Committee have been directed to complete the process of screening the candidates by the end of February and turn in a shortlist of three.

Amodu, who qualified the Super Eagles for the World Cup, will now lead his assistants to raise and train a team of local players to qualify and compete at the 2011 African Nations Championships, a competition open only to players playing in the domestic leagues of their countries.

It was a meeting that was scheduled to be a single agendum meeting, to decide on Amodu's position as Super Eagles coach.

But Amodu's future as Nigeria coach took a back seat as members of the NFF Executive Committee first focused on impeachment proceedings against NFF President Sani Lulu Abdullahi.

Exco members, aggrieved at the way they were shabbily treated by the leadership in Angola, initiated impeachment proceedings.

The in-fighting lasted until late on Friday night. As at 9pm, the issue of national coach had not even come up for deliberation.

Eventually, the situation is said to have been resolved after certain concessions were made by the leadership, and the Amodu issue finally came up for discussion.

It was originally suggested that the coach be sent to Europe on a six-month refresher course, but that idea was jettisoned and he was put in charge of raising a team of local players.


Colin Udoh