NFF shies away from controversy over Rohr’s, Dennerby’s roles in Nigerian football development

Some stakeholders in the country’s football has urged the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to compel Super Eagles’ Manager, Gernot Rohr to join Super Falcons’ new coach, Thomas Dennerby in developing the game at the local level.

The NFF unveiled Dennerby as Super Falcons’ coach in Abuja on Tuesday. Among other things, his contract specifies that apart from the senior national team, he would also help in building other women teams. This means he will live in Nigeria to discover and work with talents available in the country.

This is contrary to the process Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr has adopted in carrying out his duties. Since the Franco/German became the senior men’s national team coach, his focused has been on Europe-based players of Nigerian origin, paying little or no time to home-based players.Despite qualifying Nigeria for the Russia 2018 World Cup with mostly foreign-based players, Rohr, according to some football followers, has not done anything else to put the nation’s football on the right path. 

But former Super Eagles’ midfielder, Mutiu Adepoju, counters such arguments, saying every coach is working according to the contract he signed with the NFF.Adepoju, a member of the NFF technical committee, said the decision to mandate a coach to work in a particular way is determined by his employers, the board of the NFF. 

According to him, “This question on why the new Super Falcons coach should be made to live and work in Nigeria to help develop female football at all levels and Rohr does not work according to such rules which is  to also develop Nigeria men  football at all  levels, should not be directed to the NFF technical committee members. Our job as members is to give advise where needed to move Nigerian football forward.

“The chairman of the technical committee, Ahmed Fresh is in the right place to answer this question. He is a member of the board of the federation and any key decision on the contract of Nigerian national team coaches is determined by the board.”

The Guardian could not reach the NFF Technical Committee Chairman, Ahmed Fresh, who is in Morocco attending the on-going African Nations Championship (CHAN), while the federation’s secretary general, Sanusi Mohammed, refused to comment on the issue.

Guardian put a call to NFF secretary, He said, “this question should be directed to the NFF technical committee for clarification. I do not have anything to say on the issue. All I can say now is that the Super Falcons coach would soon start work.”