Abuja – The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has offered Stephen Keshi a new two-year contract as national team coach.
Keshi is set to return to the Eagles after a period of uncertainty - and losing out in the race for the job of Ghana, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Angola and Burkina Faso. He and the NFF have been back and forth in contract negotiations.
Keshi has coached Nigeria since 2011. He won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations and led the team into the World Cup knock-out stages last year in Brazil, but failed to qualify the Super Eagles for the last continental tournament earlier this year, then on a match-by-match contract.
NFF president Pinnick Amaju confirmed Keshi's imminent return as Eagles coach, saying however he was yet to sign the contract.
“Keshi's contract has been approved by the NFF board, I can confirm that to Nigerians. All that is left now is for him (Keshi) to sign it. As we speak, Keshi has not put pen to paper,” Amaju said.
Details of the new contract are yet to be made public, but dpa learnt the new deal is slightly higher than the previous one and worth about 34 000 dollars a month to encouage the coach to remain and give the job his best shot.
Keshi confirmed to theeagleonline.com.ng he was yet to sign, complaining about some clauses contained in the new deal.– Sapa-dpa