Sports Minister ties Peseiro’s fate with Super Eagles to 2023 AFCON success 

By Wale Mustapha

The Honorable Sports Minister, Senator John Enoh has disclosed that Jose Peseiro will remain as head coach of Nigeria men senior national team until end of 2023 African Cup of Nations, AFCON coming up in January, 2024.

Peseiro’s current contract with the Super Eagles has since expired and that has been talks about his renewal even with a pay cut.

The Portuguese coach was hired for the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF by the country’s Ministry of Sports under the then Minister, Sunday Dare and are expected to discuss his new deal.

Senator Enoh waded into the case of Peseiro over the calls to sack the coach following the Super Eagles’ disastrous start to the 2026 World Cup qualifiers haven recorded a disappointing 1-1 draws in their opening two games against Lesotho and Zimbabwe.

The Sports Minister called for meeting with the Peseiro and the leadership of the NFF recently over the team’s poor start and plan ahead of AFCON in Ivory Coast.

Senator Enoh in am interview on Monday did not hide the fact that it was the Ministry that took charge of hiring and payment of Peseiro and was also involved in the renewal of his contract which will have to be decided after the AFCON tournament.

“I’ll tell you what I met and what I have also done so far. I was given a brief when I became Minister of Sports Development about the employment of the present Super Eagles coach, the signing of the contract that took place in my predecessor’s office as Minister of Youth and Sports.

“I also got involved when the contract had ended with the outstanding monies not paid to the coach and the fact that there were some discussions as to what was going to happen going forward.

“The meeting took place in my office with the NFF that agreed to an extension of the contract to allow the present Super Eagles coach to be able to sit as coach and take the national team to the next AFCON coming up middle of January and then see how well we do in that tournament before determining what then happens to his contract.

“We also got involved in renegotiating the terms of the contract because the present NFF was not at the leadership of the NFF by the time the present coach was hired and therefore were not part of the contract,” he said.

Nigeria will kick start their AFCON campaign on January 14 with a game against Equatorial Guinea before taking on Ivory Coast and Guinea Bissau in the other fixtures in Group A.