Former Stationery Stores of Lagos and Green Eagles midfielder, Adebayo Gbadebo, has voiced his fears that Finidi George’s shock resignation as Super Eagles Head Coach would endanger Nigeria’s chances of qualifying for 2026 FIFA Woeld Cup finals to be staged in USA/Mexico/Canada, Exclusivenews.com.ng reports.
George stepped down from his role as Super Eagles Manager after two friendly games and two competitive games in charge without a win.
And in the aftermath of the three time African Champions 2-1 defeat by Republic of Benin in a Match Day four fixture of the qualifiers inside the magnificent Houphouet Boigny Stadium, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, ‘Finito’ opted to call time on his senior national team managerial career.
And Gbadebo, who is now a coach based in Thailand, reckons that Finidi’s resignation does not cast any slur on the indigenous coaches but hangs a big question mark on the national team coaches selection process.
He admitted that Finidi George’s sudden departure has opened lots of can of worms in both the Technical Department of NFF and has as well placed Nigeria’s 2026 World Cup qualification at risk.
“The national team is already in a big problem because we’ve six matches that we ‘must win’ to get 21 points to see if we can qualify from Group C of the World Cup qualifiers”, Gbadebo began when Exclusivenews.com.ng called him up on Saturday night.
“So, with way the team is right now, nobody can say boldly that winning all the remaining games could be realistic of a fair and honest expectation because nobody knows about tomorrow. Every match we need to play we must get the right things done. The time is still far to prepare for all these matches. But you don’t know what’s going to happen.
“Are the players going to be retained or changed, same thing about the management. Definitely it’s not looking good. Anybody that’s gonna come now, as Super Eagles new coach, knows he’s in for a rescue mission. I don’t know how he’s gonna do it but of course, it depends also on how the other teams get themselves prepared because as you can see most other teams are having confidence on how they are getting prepared.
“And some of the matches are going to be away. You know there are some away matches that are going to be difficult. But don’t forget, we have the talents but it’s about making them win the games which is the big obstacles, to win all the matches, both home and away. These are the challenges.
“So the mistake had been done. For me, I think a lot need to be done in selection of coaches process because, okay, Finidi is gone. But I would like to ask, who is going to get us the new coach? Is it still going to be the same technical group that sat down and chose Finidi? What criteria are they going to use to engage the new coach now that’s better than the one they used in appointing Finidi? Or is it just because of money that they want to bring an expatriate to take more money, let us know.
“What’s the vision and plan of the new coach for us? There are several ways you can take coaches that’s very professional and I tell you, these are the things I would like to ask more (about); the criteria, who are the people? What do they have? Yes, people in the NFF know about football in Nigeria, they know about Nigerian league, they know about things around and should know how to make the game here better organised like in Morocco, South Africa, Egypt etc. We need to get the right people into the technical group that can do this work.
“So we need to get this message to the NFF, that it’s not only about picking a coach, but also about who are the people picking the coach? What are their CVs, profiles that we’ll be convinced that they can get us the right coach”, Gbadebo queried.
