Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Amaju Pinnick has revealed that the new contract for Super Eagles’ Manager, Gernot Rohr, includes a clause that the Franco-German must reside in the country to coach the senior national team.
Pinnick has also disclosed that the NFF would move into its permanent residence, the Sunday Dankaro House, early next year.Speaking in Lagos yesterday, Pinnick said the federation had decided to ensure that whoever coached any of the national teams paid total attention to the job hence the fresh clause in the new contract for Rohr.
According to Pinnick, “We will start negotiating the new contract with Rohr in January. That would give us time to plan for the qualifiers, which begin in March. “We are not going to compromise our national integrity again. He must live in Nigeria and can go to Europe two or three times a year. “He can stay either in Lagos or Abuja, where we are ready to provide a befitting accommodation for him.
“Other national teams’ coaches live in the countries where they work and ours cannot be different.“I must admit that the last contract was loose in so many areas, but we want to correct that now.”
Pinnick said Rohr, like every other Nigerian employee, would now be subject to the existing tax regime in the country, adding that the federation was not ready to condone anything that would go against national interest.
He also disclosed that the NFF technical committee and the federation would henceforth vet the national teams’ selection to ensure that only qualified players got invitation to play for the country.
“We are getting into a very critical time in the World Cup qualifiers and we must be ready if we desired to be in Qatar.“All the African countries want to qualify for the World Cup and they are doing everything possible to achieve that.
“Teams like Madagascar fancy their chances of going to the World Cup and you can see from the last Nations Cup that so many African countries have come of age in football.“There should be no room for error now.”
The NFF boss regretted the poor state of the national league, adding, however, that efforts were being made to bring it at par with big leagues in Africa.
“Every league depends on money accruing from television rights for survival. Ours cannot be different. “We will look at where we got it wrong and see how we can remedy the situation.“Our football cannot grow to our potential if we don’t get the local league right,” he said.
He revealed that the federation was getting ready to move to its permanent residence, adding that work was on to ensure that the Sunday Dankaro House was put in order quick.
“We want to move to the house before the end of January. Already, PWC is working to ensure we do things the right way and move into the place.” Pinnick praised the Sports Minister, Sunday Dare for keeping the federation on its toes, adding, “The minister is putting us under pressure to perform creditably.
“We are happy that he is eager to see the growth of Nigerian football and so we have resolved to continue working hard to give Nigerians the level of football development they deserve.” He concluded.
