Stephen Keshi agrees new N6million contract to continue as Super Eagles’ coach

by Mark Bassey
Head coach of the Super Eagles coach,
Stephen Keshi, has agreed to sign
a N6million contract to stay on as gaffer of
the senior male national football team.

He will sign the agreement with the Nigeria
Football Federation and the Sports Ministry
once the NFF crisis is resolved.
On the evening of Thursday, 28 August, the
Sports Minister and Chairman of the
National Sports Commission, NSC, Tamuno
Danagogo, disclosed to journalists in Abuja,
that the current crisis has been the major
factor hindering Keshi’s contract signing.

Danagogo said, “We all know that Keshi’s
contract expired after the World Cup and
we were trying to see whether they would
negotiate with him, then Maigari was
suspended.

Umeh came in and reopened
talks with him. They said they cannot pay.
But we have a match on September 6 so I
had to intervene.”
He added that his intervention into the
matter prompted Keshi to agree to a new
contract.
“I asked Keshi if he was desirous to handle
the team again and he said yes. I then
asked him to come, assuring him that I
would take care of what it takes for him to
handle the team for the two matches we
have in September after which we can talk
about the contract,” he said.
He also revealed that the N1 million naira
was the difference between the contract
offered to Keshi by the Federation and
what he requested.

The Minister said, “It is
just about N1 million and we believe that it
is no longer a challenge.”
Stephen Keshi has been the coach of the
Nigerian national team since 2011, and he
went on to become the first Nigerian to win
the Africa Cup of Nations as both a player
and a coach at the 2013 tournament. He
subsequently took the team to the second
round of the 2014 world cup in Brazil,
where his contract expired.

Ever since then, he has been in talks with
the Nigerian football federation over an
improved contract, but the negotiations
have stalled, largely because of the crisis at
the NFF.

The crisis which has been ongoing for
months has seen the football body
factionalised, with Chris Giwa having a set
of loyalists, while Aminu Maigari, also
claiming to still be the President of the
federation.

Maigari was arrested alongside Musa
Amadu, the NFF Secretary-General, and
Chris Green, a board member, by the State
Security Service, SSS, on Tuesday, 26
August.