By Victor Kanayo
The leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has now admitted that talks between it and newly announced head of Super Eagles Bruno Labbadia broke down.
Confirming this latest development, NFF Communications director, Ademola Olajire told Heritage Times HT via a statement on Friday night that “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.”
Speaking further, NFF President, Ibrahim Gusau said, “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% to 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.”
Earlier on Friday, report from Germany had revealed that Labbadia had rejected offers from NFF.
The NFF had hurriedly announced on Tuesday that the German will take charge of the Super Eagles.
A German news outlet then reported that Labbadia rejected the offer following the impatience of the NFF in properly concluding the contract talk.
Labbadia was initially expected to take charge of the Super Eagles for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying fixtures against Benin Republic and Rwanda.
Now, NFF has confirmed to Heritage Times HT that its Technical Director, Coach Augustine Eguavoen, will 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).
It will be Eguavoen’s fourth stint in charge of the three-time African champions, after earlier experience in 2005-2007, 2010 and 2022.
