Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Sunday Dare, has revealed of on-going consultations over the fate of under-fire Super Eagles Head Coach, Gernot Rohr.
The future of the German coach has been a subject of intense speculations following the drab 0-0 outing by the Super Eagles against Cape Verde in a World Cup 2022 qualifying match in Lagos on November 16.
Dare, who spoke with reporters in Abuja over the weekend, confirmed holding a tripartite meeting on Thursday last week with Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Amaju Pinnick and General Secretary, Dr Sanusi Mohammed to review development around the gaffer.
“Yes, we had a meeting on our journey to the Africa Cup of Nations and also on the march to the World Cup. The meeting with the NFF was to review developments around the technical coach and also around the issues that have dominated the public space since we played Cape Verde, ” Dare said.
The minister said that although the parties failed to take a final decision on Rohr, he promised that decision taken would be in the interest of the country and the national team.
He also insisted that the sporting authority would still need to resolve all the fundamental factors within a couple of days before arriving on a decision on the future of the 68-year old coach.
“It is within a couple of days before we will come to a decision. We don’t want to be stampeded; the NFF has a responsibility. They also have experts that they will consult and they will check what needed to be checked and then come back finally with a decision, which I believe at the end of the day will serve the best interests of our football development,” Dare said
He added that the resolution of the Rohr saga will also be guided by factually, history, best practices and will be devoid of sentiment.
“We shall be properly guided by history, particularly what happened in the past. We know the history of Nigerian football and history of coaches. We don’t want to make mistakes made in the past, but we want to make sure that whatever we do this time will be a decision based on factuality and on best practices for the interest of our football development “.
