Come out if you’re owed – NFF challenges ex-Super Eagles coaches

The Nigeria Football Federation has challenged former Super Eagles coaches to come out and speak if they are being owed by the country’s football governing body.

This is coming in the wake of the accusations that the NFF owed the late 1980 AFCON-winning captain, Christian Chukwu, the sum of $128,000.

Chukwu died on Saturday, April 12, in Enugu at the age of 74, and an interview he gave in 2024, in which he accused the NFF of owing him, resurfaced online,

In the wake of the allegations, NFF’s General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, denied the claims and said there are no records of indebtedness to the coach, charging other coaches to come forward with their claims.

Sanusi claimed the NFF had since the first tenure of former president Amaju Pinnick (2014-2018), set up a committee to check their records for backlogs of salaries to former coaches but there was no record on Chukwu.

“There is no record in the NFF of any outstanding indebtedness to ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu. During the first term of the board headed by Mr Amaju Pinnick, a committee was set up to diligently peruse the papers of coaches who were being owed, even from previous NFF administrations,” Sanusi said.

“That committee was given the clear mandate to verify all debts and ensure that the coaches being owed were paid immediately. I am aware that the ‘Chairman’ was in the employ of the NFF between 2002 and 2005, before he was relieved of the post following the 1-1 draw with Angola in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Kano in August 2005. There is certainly no record of indebtedness to him in the NFF.”

“As a credible organisation that is very much alive to its responsibilities, if we are confronted with any genuine document of indebtedness to any coach, we will offset the debt immediately.”