Following the premature exit of the Golden Eaglets from the ongoing 2019 FIFA U17 World Cup in Brazil, reports emerged that the team's handler, coach Manu Garba had been released from his duties but in a swift response, the NFF has moved to deny such rumours.
General Secretary of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Dr. Mohammed Sanusi has tagged as fake news some media reports insinuating that the Golden Eaglets chief coach had been sacked.
“It is not true that the NFF has sacked Coach Many Garba as coach of the national Under-17 team. We cannot sack someone without getting his match reports and his reasons why the team failed in Brazil,” Sanusi said as observed by Soccernet.ng.
“It came to me as a surprise when I read in the media that we have sacked Manu Garba as coach of Golden Eaglets. We cannot sack him just like that without getting his side of the story. As you can see, the team has yet to return, so I don’t know where they got that story from.”
“We expected so much from the team because we gave them the needed support to achieve good results, but they crashed out in the second round to Holland. We [the NFF] shall hear from the coach when he submits his technical report. From there, we move on by trying to avoid future lapses if any.”
The Nigeria U17 team qualified to the round of 16 at the World Cup by winning two of their three group games and topping Group B but fell to a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Netherlands, a team that had qualified as one of the four third-placed sides.
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Avoid future lapses by refraining from applying the quota system in the selection of players, and make a concerted effort to completely stamp down on the practice of cash-for-inclusion still prevalent in team selections. Let selection be by merit and the process should be sufficiently transparent. We are tired of being embarrassed by our football administrators before the rest of the world.
How can they sack him when he is hausa man & 2ndly, nigeria is the most confuse country that does not need a person that is ready to move the country forward, they need someone that will take the country backward provided the greedy top officials are gaining……
They are planning to sack GERNOT ROHR who won us bronze medal at afcon….. Meanwhile there is a man that could not win a medal at u17 afcon,,,,, de same person went to u17 WC and destroyed all de records nigeria past heros have set…. For instance; no player has ever scored a hattrick against nigeria at u17 WC but it happened on wednesday against netherlands…..
Nigeria hav never lost back to back in u17WC but lost against australia and netherlands….. Etc both GARBA and his below average boys destroyed all those records….