NFF disciplinary committee recommends that Super Eagles coach Yusuf be sacked

MEMBERS of the Nigerian Football Federation's (NFF) disciplinary committee have recommended that Super Eagles coach Salisu Yusuf be dismissed after he was recorded receiving money from undercover reporters posing as player agents.

Coach Salisu was caught on tape receiving N360,000 ($1,000) from undercover reporters posing as agents trying to influence him to select players. Mr Yusuf, 56, coaches Nigeria's home-based team and is an assistant to Super Eagles head coach Gernot Rohr with a specific brief to uncover local talent.

He manages the team that participates in the Championship of African Nations (Chan), taking them to the final last year where they won silver. In an undercover operation carried out by Ghanaian journalists, who posed as football agents, Mr Yusuf was approached in September last year to select two players for the Chan tournament.

Yesterday, the NFF's disciplinary committee met and recommended that Mr Yusuf be sacked for taking the money from Ghanaian journalist Aremeyas Anas.  Although Coach Yusuf pleaded his innocence insisting that the money he collected was in the form of a gift and didn’t influence his decision in terms of players selection, the disciplinary committee has asked the board to sack him.

It is believed that Coach Yusuf will be relieved of his role as coach of the Super Eagles and U23s but it is not sure if he will be given the chance to defend himself by the NFF board. Apparently, NFF president Amaju Pinnick and his vice Shehu Dikko were highly disappointed over the conduct of the Kano born coach, leading to suggestions that he will not survive the axe from the board.

In his letter to the BBC which aired the video, Coach Yusuf confirmed meeting with two persons who introduced themselves as football agents and that they had a discussion about players for Chan. However, he denied any wrongdoing despite accepting $750 from them.

Coach Yusuf added: “I can remember giving them my honest answer to the end that if the said players were found suitable in the selection process, they would indeed be selected.  I did accept $750 handed to me by one of the two agents to the two Nigerian players only as a gift of trivial and symbolic value and not as an inducement to play the two players represented by the two agents as Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Tiger Eye would want you to believe.”