NFF in advance talks with Stephen Keshi over Eagles’ contract extension

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The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has disclosed that it won’t be able to pay coach Stephen Keshi the 10million Naira monthly salary he has asked for in order to continue in his role as handler of the national team.
keshi

Spokesman of the NFF Technical Committee, Paul Bassey disclosed this shortly after a meeting held at the Glass House Secretariat of the NFF on Wednesday.

The Committee has advised the NFF board to negotiate with the coach on what they can afford, that will be acceptable to the coach.

He said though Keshi and his technical crew are to submit their World Cup report, the committee has taken proactive measures to review what transpired before and at the World Cup with a view to moving forward.

Bassey also disclosed that Keshi was yet to table his demands officially before the NFF board.

“There is nothing wrong about renewing Keshi’s contract, at least for the sake of continuity. But some of us still believe that if we must move forward, we need to look back. For instance, we have to sit down and look at the Brazil 2014 World Cup and see where we went wrong because we can’t just pretend as if nothing happened.

“We have to look at what happened and how can we do better because most of us believe that we should have done better than the Round of 16.

“The board said that we want to continue to work with Keshi and he has also said he is interested in coming back if his terms are met.

“As an advisory body, we have advised the board to negotiate with Keshi on what is obtainable to them and acceptable to Keshi. We read in the papers that he said he wants 10 million Naira as monthly salary and [assistant coach] Sylvanus Okpala back.

“The board can’t afford the 10million Naira monthly salary if we want to be realistic. That was why we advised the board to negotiate with him and agree on what will be obtainable to them and acceptable to the coach,” Bassey said.

Meanwhile addressing newsmen after emergence board meeting of the NFF, Emeka Inyama said the acting president of the NFF, Mike Umeh has been mandated to finalize the terms for the reviewed contract with Keshi within a week.

The NFF wants to settle the coaching job ahead of the Super Eagles’ first match in the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers which begin in September.

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