The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) says they have not signed any contract with Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro to become the substantive coach of the senior national team of Nigeria.
Peseiro was announced as the new coach of the Nigerian team with an agreement that he will take over after the Africa Cup of Nations, where he will also be on ground to monitor the team.
His job schedule begins immediately after the tournament but recent reports indicate that the NFF want to backtrack on the agreement and keep their faith in interim coach Austine Eguavoen.
The performance has now triggered the idea of keeping him in the role permanently with an idea of him also keeping his job as technical director base on the few games the team plays in a year.
“He (Peseiro) is not in Cameroon because we have not signed a contract with him yet,” the official, a member of the NFF executive council who does not want to be named, told ESPN.
“If he had signed a contract, he would have definitely been in Cameroon as planned.”
Eguavoen has impressed with the team at the Africa Cup of Nations with Nigeria winning all three of their games so far at the tournament with a style of football many refer to as one of the best in recent times.
“What we all agree on is that we want the team to do well, to play good football, to make Nigerians happy and to win trophies.
“It doesn’t matter who the coach is, what matters is the objective. If that objective can be achieved with Eguavoen as we can see now, then why not?
“We removed Rohr because Nigerians were not happy with the play and we were not blind to see that we were not going in the right direction the way we were playing.”
“What we are even thinking of right now is to give Eguavoen the two jobs. The national team plays about 10 matches a year, so during those times when they are not playing, he can carry on with his other responsibilities,” the official said.
