The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has said that stringent regulations of German tax authorities conspired to abort the agreement it had with Bruno Labbadia for the latter to become head coach of the Super Eagles.
In a statement, NFF president Ibrahim Gusau was quoted as saying on Friday evening, “We have been on the tax issue for the past three days, and I told him clearly that there was no way the NFF will agree to offset the concomitant tax percentage on his salary that will be demanded by German tax authorities. It is not possible for us to shoulder the responsibility of shelling out another money, between 32% to 40% of his salary, after paying the agreed monthly wage.
“The NFF and Mr. Labbadia reached an agreement in principle before we made the announcement that he would become the Head Coach of the Super Eagles. The tax details were never part of our discussions, and he had personally agreed to all terms before the tax issue came up. We were doing our best to be flexible in the discussions but he was adamant that the NFF had to pay the full tax amount as well. We simply cannot do that.”
The statement continued, “In the event, Technical Director of Nigeria Football Federation, Coach Augustine Eguavoen will now take charge of the Super Eagles for the upcoming 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches against Benin Republic (Uyo, 7th September) and Rwanda (Kigali, 10th September).”
This will be Eguavoen’s fourth stint in charge of the three-time African champions, after earlier experience in 2005-2007, 2010 and 2022.
