Sports news now unfolds at an alarming rate, considering players’ transfer with the summer window closing last night.
Without mincing words, millions of club football fans worldwide were glued to their various sources of news with the intent of having firsthand information about their club’s activities in the transfer window. Nigerians are not left out as at press time as the future of Victor Osimhen is still up in the air. Will the Nigerian head to Saudi Arabia or will remain in Europe. If he remains in Europe, which football club will he heads to? Is it Chelsea of Paris Saint-Germain?
Earlier in the week, it was reported that the current African Footballer of the Year is holding out to either Chelsea or Paris Saint-Germain in the absence of these two European giants making a bid for him, he will likely consider the Saudi Arabia’s Al Ahli offer that is already on the table after the Saudi side and Napoli had agreed terms.
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While PSG have cooled their interest in the Nigerian, Chelsea remains in talks to sign him even as late yesterday afternoon. Skysport reports despite that Napoli had agreed a fee in the region of £67m with Al Ahli, the Saudi clubs are understood to be unhappy because the goalposts of the deal have changed and are standing firm on their original offer.
The Osimhen deal is complicated as the player is on big contract at Napoli as he wants to keep his earning at a similar level as Chelsea look to implement a wage structure. It is understood the player prioritise a move to Stamford Bridge.
However, it is unclear whether Chelsea could sign him as the club currently boasts a huge number of options in attack, including Christopher Nkunku, Nicolas Jackson, Marc Guiu, Pedro Neto, Mykhailo Mudryk, Noni Madueke, Cole Palmer and Joao Felix.
As at press time on Friday, Chelsea is still pushing for the signing of Osimhen and talks continue with a delegation in Naples. But, this remains a difficult deal to do given Chelsea’s wage structure and Osimhen’s demands. Club-to-club negotiations are expected to be easier to resolve than the personal terms.
However, the likelihood of Osimhen signing for Chelsea is high on the premise that Al Ahli cannot sign two foreign players having just a slot left. With Ivan Toney booked for their medical on Friday, the Saudi club might have to forget Osimhen for now.
As if the embarrassment the country got at the just concluded Paris Olympic Games was not enough, the country was subjected to another embarrassment after another Nigerian, Udeme Okon, won the gold for South Africa in the ongoing World U-20 Athletics Championships in Lima, Peru.
Today, the Premier League enters its third week of the 2024/25 season with Arsenal hosting Brighton. Last week, the Gunners beat56 Aston Villa 2-0 at the Villa Park. The Gunners should nick this game, even at that the Gunners begin a three big game that might define their season. Brighton has won the opening two games and is second on the table behind Manchester City. Brighton on their day can pass it around and have a right go at you and do special things.
Then they play their two games away, first against and next Manchester City. Lose these two games, Arsenal are far from the title because they cannot afford to start trailing Manchester City by six points when you know that City do finish strong.
On Manchester United host Liverpool in the biggest game of the weekend. Erik ten Hag and Arne Slot face off when Manchester United takes on Liverpool. Dutch coaches are managing the clubs and could this be the revival of a major rivalry? Is this a brotherly love or sibling rivalry?
No wonder, Erik ten Hag described the news that the two biggest clubs in English football would be coached by Dutchmen as “fantastic for our football” you could understand his point.
Let’s discuss the issue of the day, the botched German Bruno Labbadia contract deal with the Nigeria Football Federation. The Nigeria Football Federation has on Tuesday announced his appointment as the 37th Super Eagles manager. If the deal had not fallen through, he would have been the sixth German to coach the Super Eagles. He would also have taking charge of the Super Eagles for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Benin Republic on Saturday September 7, 2024 in Uyo and Rwanda away on September 10th.
The other Germans before him were Karl-Heinz Marotzke (1970 and 1974), Gottlieb Göller (1981), Manfred Höner (1988-1989), Berti Vogts (2007-2008) and Gernot Rohr (2016-2021). Höner led the Eagles to runner-up position at the 1988 Africa Cup of Nations, while Rohr qualified and led Nigeria to the 2018 FIFA World Cup finals in Russia.
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However, late on Friday, the Nigeria Football Federation confirmed via a statement that the deal has fallen through. This means that the search for a foreign coach for the Super Eagles begins afresh.
According to the NFF, “Stringent regulations of German tax authorities have conspired to abort the agreement between the Nigeria Football Federation and Coach Bruno Labbadia for the latter to mount the saddle as Head Coach of Nigeria’s Senior Men Team, Super Eagles.
“We have been on the tax issue for the past three days, and I told him clearly that there was no way the NFF will agree to offset the concomitant tax percentage on his salary that will be demanded by German tax authorities. It is not possible for us to shoulder the responsibility of shelling out another money between 32% and 40% of his salary, after paying the agreed monthly wage.
“The NFF and Mr. Labbadia reached an agreement in principle before we made the announcement that he would become the Head Coach of the Super Eagles. The tax details were never part of our discussions, and he had personally agreed to all terms before the tax issue came up. We were doing our best to be flexible in the discussions but he was adamant that the NFF had to pay the full tax amount as well. We simply cannot do that,” President of NFF, Ibrahim Musa Gusau, said on Friday evening.
Consequently, the NFF informed that the Technical Director of Nigeria Football Federation, Coach Augustine Eguavoen would now take charge of the Super Eagles for the upcoming 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches against Benin Republic (Uyo, 7th September) and Rwanda (Kigali, 10th September).
This will be Eguavoen’s fourth stint in charge of the three-time African champions, after earlier experience in 2005-2007, 2010 and 2022.
It will be recalled that it was Eguavoen who failed to qualify the team for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, even failing to go past the group stage of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.
What is the way forward for the Super Eagles with the recent turn of events? How on earth did the NFF announce his appointment when the deal has not been sealed?
It smacks of hypocrisy. NFF’s statement on Friday evening explaining the turn of events smacks of a cover-up. Can you imagine the embarrassment to the country? It just tells us how low our football has sunk. This simply confirms the age-long held belief that the NFF personifies mediocrity. It will be recalled that former Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr, while congratulating him during the week said, “I hope he will be treated well.”
Par adventure, Labbadia called Rohr and with the way Rohr was hounded out of the country, he would not have a good thing to say about the NFF.
This should be an eye opener as to how we treat past coaches, be it foreign or Nigerian coaches of the Super Eagles. The country has a bad reputation for mistreating coaches. Coaches contract are not honoured, coaches are owed for months, in short the NFF has a bad reputation. And we are now reaping what we sowed.
Honestly, before thinking of the way forward, there is the need to tell ourselves the gospel truth, maybe we, as a country, will learn from this. The crisis the Nigeria football Federation found itself is a self-inflicted one.
The situation is like a father who refuses to train his children only for him to turn to them in his old age asking for their help in his time of need. How do you expect the children you neglected to come to your aid when they cannot take care of themselves? Nigerian football found itself is such an unpalatable situation because of the refusal to develop Nigerian football and also put in place measures to also develop our coaches.
This failure is why the country now depends on players playing in European leagues. This failure to develop our coaches has constrained football administrators to depend on foreign coaches for the Super Eagles. For how long are we going to rely on foreign coaches?
According to Punch editorial of 30 August, “In truth, Labbadia’s appointment is not a cure-all for the ills of Nigerian football. Administratively, there is confusion and incompetence. Coaches are owed salaries, and the same for the players. The minister interferes arrogantly in NFF affairs.
“The domestic championship is in disarray. The best players from there are struggling in average teams in Europe. The time between Labbadia’s appointment and the AFCON qualifiers is short. Appointing coaches from different footballing ideologies deepens the woes of the Eagles.”
