It’s only five months since Nigeria narrowly lost in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations to hosts Ivory Coast. But a lot has happened since.
Their tournament coach Jose Peseiro has departed. His replacement, Finidi George, has resigned. The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) says the whole setup needs to be rejigged and they had to deny that star striker Victor Osimhen had been banned for a social media outburst linked to the unrest.
The Athletic looks into a national team in desperate need of direction and harmony.
AFCON was a relative success for Nigeria. They would have wanted to win their first title since 2013 but in the end, the fervour surrounding hosts Ivory Coast made the difference. The Ivory Coast were the good news story of the tournament, too — striker and cancer survivor Sebastien Haller scored the winner in the final.
Nigeria, as is their habit, wore another vibrant and collectable kit. On the pitch, though, they were far more business-like: an opening-game 1-1 draw against Equatorial Guinea, then 1-0 wins against Ivory Coast — who sacked their coach because it looked like they were heading out — and Guinea Bissau in the group stage put Nigeria into the knockouts. There, wins against Cameroon (2-0), Angola (1-0) and South Africa (on penalties) saw them into the final. Captain and centre-back William Troost-Ekong was named player of the tournament. He was Nigeria’s joint top scorer with three, along with Ademola Lookman.
But the Ivory Coast, who they had overcome in the group stage, had settled on putting Emerse Fae in charge of the team as caretaker. They qualified for the knockout rounds as one of the best third-placed teams and progressed by beating Senegal, Mali and DR Congo. In the final, they beat Nigeria 2-1.
Nigeria’s players after losing the AFCON final against Ivory Coast (Daniel Beloumou Olomo/AFP via Getty Images)
Despite the loss in the final game, the performance had earned admirers in high places. When they returned home, Nigeria’s president Bola Ahmed Tinubu held up the team as inspiration. Each player received the Member of the Order of the Niger, one of the country’s highest honours, plus a flat and a piece of land near the capital Abuja as a reward.
“Let this passing event not dispirit us but bring us together to work harder,” said the president. “To those cherished Nigerian youths expressing their gifts in communities, drawing lines in the sand as they play football in their humble rectangles of play, you can be our heroes tomorrow, do not relent in your pursuit. My administration is here to make dreams come true.”
Going into the tournament, Portuguese coach Peseiro had been under pressure after a lacklustre start to World Cup qualifiers, with 1-1 draws against Lesotho and Zimbabwe. So it was no surprise, with his stock higher, that he called it quits after AFCON.
“It was a pride and honour to coach the Super Eagles,” he said. “It has been 22 months of immense dedication, sacrifice, emotion, and enormous enthusiasm. We feel a sense of fulfilment.”
He was appointed after Nigeria lost to Ghana on away goals in a play-off to make the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. When AFCON was over, everyone realised there was work to be done to ensure they didn’t miss the next one in USA, Mexico and Canada in 2026.
But when Peseiro walked at the end of his contract, his assistant Finidi George was promoted. He’d played at two World Cups for Nigeria. This included the U.S. edition in 1994 when he celebrated scoring against Greece by pretending to be a urinating dog. At club level, he played for Ajax, Ipswich, Real Mallorca and Real Betis. As a coach, he had taken charge of Nigerian top division team Enyimba.
He was in caretaker charge for his first two games. The first was a 2-1 win against Ghana, who played with 10 men for the last 44 minutes. His second was a 2-0 loss in Mali.
The focus then shifted to trying to get World Cup qualification back on track. The problem was their predicament worsened.
Finidi George playing against Arsenal for Ipswich in the 2001-02 season (Phil Cole/Getty Images)
Earlier this month, they drew 1-1 at home with South Africa, before losing 2-1 to Benin. To rub salt into the wounds, Benin were led by former Nigeria coach Gerhard Rohr, who took Super Eagles to the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
With Nigeria second bottom of their qualification group, without a win and four points off the top two (Rwanda in first, South Africa second), the national federation decided something had to be done.
Three days after the loss in Benin, they released a statement in which they “wholeheartedly” apologised for the “dismal” and “very poor returns”. They said they would “work assiduously” to get the team better prepared for the AFCON 2025 qualifiers in September and for when World Cup qualification resumes in March.
How would they do that? Well, that’s what drove George to resign.
“The executive committee resolved to employ an expatriate technical adviser for the Super Eagles in the coming weeks,” said the statement.
It was, according to George, the first he’d heard of it. The premise was that the federation wanted to appoint someone above George to guide the nation’s fortunes.
In an interview with ESPN, he said he had no problem that they’d appointed a technical director, but he wasn’t happy he’d been kept in the dark.
“We had a three-hour meeting on Thursday, looking back at what happened and talking about the way forward,” he said. “At no point did anybody mention that they are getting a technical adviser. I was on my way home and just landed at the airport when I got a call about it. I was so surprised I had to park by the roadside to read about it.”
He said he was then met with two days of silence about the issues and resolved to resign by sending a letter to the federation.
“Although our recent results in the qualifying matches were not as desired, I remained committed to getting our World Cup qualification campaign back on track,” read his letter. “However, with the recent changes to the technical crew, I believe it is time for me to vacate my position.”
The NFF also said they wanted to “beef up” the nation’s technical department with more “qualitative hands” and “re-jig” the structure, led by technical director Augustine Eguavoen.
They also “expressed displeasure with the poor attitude of some of the players to the national assignment and unanimously decided in favour of a more robust scouting programme of outstanding Nigeria-eligible players from across the four corners of the universe, who can add tremendous value to the nation’s flagship team”.
George’s resignation is yet to be publicly acknowledged by NFF, but they have engaged with the other key element of this story: Victor Osimhen’s online rant.
Nigeria have had to deny Osimhen has been banned for comments on an Instagram Live (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
During an Instagram Live, the Napoli striker reacted to an online story that claimed George had accused Osimhen of faking an injury to avoid playing in the recent World Cup qualifiers. Osimhen said he’d called George to tell him about the injury at the time and that people shouldn’t believe “nonsense”. He added that he had an MRI to prove his ankle injury warranted an absence. Osimhen’s reaction outlined that he had lost respect for George.
The NFF called online reports claiming Osimhen had been banned for his actions “absolute falsehoods”. The NFF general secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, demanded calm: “The NFF hereby implores the media to join hands with the body to positively resolve issues and then focus on the big picture all the time, rather than needlessly escalate certain matters,” he said. “There was no official communication from the NFF, yet some persons have gone to town to talk about a ban on Osimhen from the national team. This is not good at all.”
The statement said the federation “has neither instructed a process nor has a process been concluded” to ban the player from the national team.
“Our focus presently is to resolve all matters around the Super Eagles and be able to look ahead with confidence to the 2025 AFCON qualifiers and the remaining six matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification series,” said Sanusi.” This is not the time to spread falsehood and foul the public space more.”
The Athletic spoke to a source close to the matter — who asked not to be named to protect relationships — who outlined that the federation is now recalibrating its plans after George’s decision to resign and not to work under a ‘technical adviser’.
(Top photo: Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images)