Sunday Oliseh eyes potential return to national team

Ex international Sunday Oliseh is reportedly considering a return to Nigerian football five years after he resigned as coach of the Super Eagles.

Oliseh tendered his resignation to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) seven months into his reign due to a breach of contract.

While the 46-year-old is yet to find a new challenge since he left his managerial role at Fortuna Sittard in 2018, said he is ready for a Nigeria return under one condition.

“My country is my country, nobody can take it from me. You can make any comment you want to make, but I am first [a] Nigerian before anything else,” Oliseh told Channels TV. “So, if my country really needs me to help out and they ask me to come and do it, I will do it.”

“But I will not do it if I am giving the best of my knowledge for my country to work and somebody is just taking it ‘yes or no’ and then eventually we all fail.

“I resigned from the Super Eagles because I had decided that when I was sick, I was going to stop because I did not get any help from the federation.”

Oliseh continued: “I don’t have the intention of ever coaching the [Super] Eagles again.”

“I loved working with the boys, I love coaching my country, but the atmosphere around it was no longer healthy.

“I didn’t want the job anymore. Health-wise I was not feeling too good; secondly, we were owed salaries. I was spending money on my health and on my team. I just couldn’t die on the job.

“Truth is, we have a foreign coach now and from what I heard and know, he is being paid four times the wages Stephen Keshi and I were paid and these are two players who won trophies for Nigeria.

“I’ve never heard Gernot Rohr complain about wages. Keshi, while he was coaching, was always complaining, when I was coaching for four months, I was unpaid, for six months my assistants were unpaid, so I had to leave the job; we were also being frustrated.”

The former Ajax and Borussia Dortmund midfielder played for the West African country between 1993 and 2002.