Nigeria's coach Finidi George sings the national anthem prior to the FIFA 2026 World Cup qualifiers group C football match between Benin and Nigeria at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny stadium in Abidjan on June 10, 2024.
It feels like just five months ago when Nigeria goriseconds away from Africa Cup of Nations glory only to lose in the final to Ivory Coast. So much has happened since.
Their tournament coach Jose Peseiro has gone. His intended replacement, Finidi George, has resigned. The whole setup is due to be rejigged, says the NFF, and after they had to deny that star striker Victor Osimhen had been banned for a social media outburst linked to the unrest.
The Athletic investigates a national team in desperate need of direction and harmony.
It was a relative success for AFCON since Nigeria would have wanted to win their first title since 2013, but the fervor surrounding hosts Ivory Coast made the difference. The Ivory Coast were also the good news story of the tournament—to striker and cancer survivor Sebastien Haller, who scored the winner in the final.
As is their habit, Nigeria wore another vibrant, collectible kit. They were much more business-like on the pitch, though: an opening-game 1-1 draw with 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 it was wins against Cameroon, 2-0, Angola, 1-0, and South Africa — on penalties — that saw them into the final. Captain and centre-back William Troost-Ekong was announced as man of the tournament; he became Nigeria’s joint top scorer with three, many thanks to Ademola Lookman.
But Ivory Coast, who had to go through them after coming as runners-up in the group, having decided eminently that putting Emerse Fae in charge of the team caretaker-style was the way to go, went on to qualify for the knockout rounds as one of the best third-placed teams. and went on by beating Senegal, Mali, and DR Congo. They beat Nigeria 2-1 after extra time in the final.
Though the team lost the last game, such performance won its hearts someplace high. As they returned home, it was the president of Nigeria himself, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who used the team to inspire patience. To show their reward for each player with the Member of the Order of the Niger—one of the nation’s highest honours, plus a flat and a duty near the capital Abuja.
“Let the passing event not dispirit us but bring us together to work harder,” said the president. “To those great Nigerian youths making their talents spellbound in communities and drawing lines in that 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.”
Entering the tournament, Portuguese coach Peseiro was under pressure due to the lackluster start to World Cup qualifiers with 1-1 draws against Lesotho and Zimbabwe. He quit after AFCON—his stock now higher.
“It was an honor and pride to have had the opportunity to be the coach of the Super Eagles,” he said. “It has been 22 months of immense dedication, sacrifice, emotion, and enormous enthusiasm. We feel a sense of fulfillment.”
He had been appointed following a loss by Nigeria to Ghana on away goals in a play-off to make the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. When AFCON was over, every person appreciated that work had to be done to make sure they are not missing 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. That included the U.S. edition in 1994 where he had celebrated scoring against Greece by pretending to be a urinating dog. At club level, he had 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.
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.
The national federation decided something had to be done: with Nigeria second bottom of their qualification group, without a win and four points off the top two—Rwanda in first, South Africa second.
Three days after the loss in Benin, they came out and “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 as well as 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,” the statement said.
It was, according to George, the first he’d heard of it. The premise, seemingly was that the federation wanted to appoint someone above George to guide the nation’s fortunes.
During the ESPN interview, he said that they had no problem appointed a technical director; the problem was that he had 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 stated. “At no point did anybody mention that they are getting a technical adviser. Just as I was driving home, and had just landed at the airport, I got a call about it; I was so surprised that I had to park by the roadside to read about it.”.
He said he had been met with two days of silence regarding the issues and had resolved to resign by sending a letter to the federation.
“Although our recent results in the qualifying matches were not as desired and I had remained committed to putting our World Cup Qualification campaign on track again, his letter read, however with the recent changes to the technical crew, I believe it’s time for me to vacate my position.”
It also said that the NFF 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”.
What the NFF has not done is issue any open statement on the resignation of George. What they have identified with, though, is the other side of this narrative-curdling venture, which is evidenced in Victor Osimhen’s online rant.
The Napoli striker went on an Instagram Live in a reaction to an online story that claimed George had accused him of faking an injury in order to avoid playing in the recent World Cup qualifiers. Osimhen said he had called George at the time to put him on notice about his injury, adding that people should not believe “nonsense”.
He further said that he had an MRI to show that his ankle warranted an absence.
What his reaction outlined was that he had lost respect for George.
The NFF described, in absolute terms, online reports claiming Osimhen had been banned for his actions as “absolute falsehoods”. “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 escalating certain matters,” he said. General Secretary of the NFF Dr Mohammed Sanusi asked for cool heads: “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.”. “That is not good at all.”
It 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 issues 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,” Sanusi said. 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)-1