By Precious Josiah
The Nigerian Football Federation has appointed former Mali coach, Eric Sekou Chelle, as the new super eagles coach.
He takes over the mantle from Austin Eguavon, who since taken over from Jose pesiero, has not made impressive mark on the team.
The decision was made by the NFF Executive committee on Tuesday ,7th of January, in a bid to make intentional effort to get the Super Eagles a stabilized coaching system.
According to the statement issued on Tuesday the former Mali international is set to assume duty with immediate effect.
His primary assignment is to get the Super Eagles a qualification ticket for the 2026 FIFA world cup.
The next round of qualifiers is scheduled for March 2025.
Chelle’s appointment came through a recommendation by the NFF’s Technical and Development Sub-Commitee, which met at Abuja on the 2nd of January to decide and deliberate of the the national team’s coaching future .
Chelle had previously coached the the Mali men senior team in 2022.
Under his watch Mali got to the quarter-finals of the 2023 (AFCON) African cup of Nations in Cote voire.
Despite the fact that his team showed great resilience, they lost to the host in a narrow 2-1 defeat .
The 47-year-old featured for Martigues, Valenciennes, Lens, Istres and Chamois Niortais in France during his playing career.
Securing a foreign coach has always being a difficult “nut to crack” for the NFF. The incident with Bruno Labadia will always be a point of reference, where NFF announced Labadia as Super Eagles head coach and the latter came out to debunk the news, expressing dissatisfaction with NFF’s recruitment process.
As the new coach comes into the team, he is mandated to restore stability to the team and get his first eleven of the team, and getting his squad to live up to expectations and win something tangible.
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