The Minister of Sports, Senator John Enoh, has assured Nigerian football fans that the senior men’s national team, the Super Eagles, would have a new coach in the next one or two weeks.
The Super Eagles have been without a substantive coach following the expiration of the contract of Jose Peseiro after the Africa Cup of Nations in February where the team finished as runners up.
Finidi George, who was one of the assistants to Peseiro coached the team in the last two friendly matches they played against Ghana and Mali, but the Minister said the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will soon name a permanent coach for the team.
“Unfortunately, the senior national team doesn’t have a coach. We played two freindlies and had just Finidi George oversee those two matches,” Senator Enoh said in exclusive interview on Channels Televisions Sports Tonight on Thursday.
“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.
“But NFF is conscious and mindful that our next qualifiers in June, what I can assure is that in the next one or two weeks at the most that the senior national team will have a new coach.
“My engagement and interactions with NFF suggest to me that NFF is conscious of expectations of Nigerians, they are conscious that they cannot afford to lead the country to another non-appearance at the World Cup, the NFF knows what Nigeria lost by not being at the last World Cup and they are working very hard to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
The Super Eagles did not make it to the last world cup and have started the 2026 World Cup qualifiers on a poor note, drawing with Lesotho and Zimbabwe, a start the Minister admitted is not good enough.
He insisted that Nigeria cannot afford to miss out on going to another World Cup considering all the losses that caused the nation.
“I think we have not had a tremendous start, it’s a shaky one and therefore there is a milage to cover given that we didn’t go for the last World Cup. We cannot afford not to go for the next and therefore everything needs to be done.
“Coming after AFCON and coming after we have had a tremendous show somewhat, I think everybody expects that we should be able to consolidate on that and take it from there,” Enoh said.
