Super Eagles’ former defender and captain, Augustine Eguavoen has dismissed as false a report that went viral on Tuesday that he had quit as the interim coach of Nigeria’s national team.
Sports247.ng reports that the viral information came soon after the Eagles played out a goalless draw away to Rwanda in their second match of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
Although Eguavoen stated at the airport in Kigali that his mandate with the Eagles had come to an end, since his assignment was for the first two matches of the AFCON qualifiers, he said it does not mean he quit the squad.
Considering that he is still the technical director of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Eguavoen added that it is imperative he continues in charge of the team until a substantive coach is named for the job.
‘Egu’ added, “It’s quite unfortunate that people just trigger something that is not correct. The situation we are in now, we don’t need negative stories.
“I only talked about how I will sit down with the hierarchy of the federation after these two games, and we’ll see how we will go about prosecuting the next match.”
The member of Nigeria’s AFCON winning squad of Tunisia ’94 and first team to the FIFA World Cup at USA ’94, added an insight into the thought process that jolted him on reading that he had quit from his fourth stint as Super Eagles handler.
“When I saw that story,” the ex-international who was fondly called ‘Cerezo’ in his playing days recounted, “I was kind of worried and concerned.
“I knew whatever people were reading out there was not correct.”
He then reiterated that he did not throw in the towel as had been reported by a section of the Nigerian sports media before the delegation returned home from Kigali.
“I’m still very much in charge, and I’m the technical director of Nigeria Football Federation.
“(I am) saddled with the responsibility of taking charge of the Super Eagles at this moment, and that’s where we are,” Eguavoen stressed.
