NFF sacks Falcons’ coach, confirms Amodu as new technical director

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) yesterday dropped Super Falcons’ Coach, Edwin Okon, from the women national team. In his place, the federation named former Plateau United star, Christopher Danjuma, in acting capacity.

NFF Technical Committee Chairman, Felix Anyansi-Agwu, yesterday in Abuja praised Coach Okon and his crew for doing their best within the period they were in charge of the team, adding, however, “the contract given to the crew has elapsed with the Women’s World Cup in Canada.”

Anyansi revealed that “Mr. Christopher Danjuma will now take over the team in acting capacity, pending the appointment of a substantive coaching crew, which process is ongoing.”

Anyansi-Agwu also assured that the NFF would support Christopher and his crew to qualify the Falcons for the women’s football event of the 2016 Olympics, billed for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Danjuma was an assistant to Okon in the previous dispensation and his first assignment will be to see the Falcons past Equatorial Guinea, with the first leg in Port Harcourt on July 18 and the return leg in Bata on August 2.

Meanwhile, two years after he was appointed technical and football development director by the former Aminu Maigari led board of the NFF,  Super Eagles’ former coach, Shuaibu Amodu formally resumed duty yesterday with a pledge to focus on the transformation of Nigerian football.

Amodu, who was offered a four-year contract, beginning from April 1, 2015, will work closely with the national team coaches, the NFF technical and development committee and the technical study team, headed by Anyansi-Agwu and Austin Jay Jay Okocha respectively, as provided in the terms of the contract.

An elated Amodu yesterday promised to work in harmony with all the national team coaches in order to develop Nigerian football, adding that as the director of technical and development, he would rather concentrate on the target of developing football than interfering with the selection of players, which, he noted, was the duty and responsibility of the coaches.

The former Super Eagles’ chief coach, who confessed that he has not spoken with the current senior national team coach, Stephen Keshi, since he earlier urged him to resign following the failure to qualify Nigeria for the 2015 AFCON, said, “I will bring the best of my 38 years coaching experience to the benefit of Nigerian football. It is not my purview to select players for national team coaches. It is the duty and responsibility of the coaches. But I will work with them to ensure that the best is always available for Nigeria.”