Afcon 2025 Qualifiers: Eguavoen to lead Super Eagles as Labbadia rejects NFF

German coach Bruno Labbadia made a U-turn in his decision to coach the Super Eagles of Nigeria.

On Tuesday, the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, announced that the German will take charge of the Super Eagles.

According to reports from Germany, the 58-year-old has now rejected the chance to manage the three-time African champions.

NFF reportedly failed to reach a contractual agreement with the former Germany international striker before making the announcement.

Labbadia was initially expected to take charge of the Super Eagles for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying fixtures against Benin Republic and Rwanda.

The technical director of the NFF, Austin Eguavoen, could now take charge of the team for both games.

 NFF is claiming stringent regulations of German tax authorities have conspired to abort the agreement between the NFF and Labbadia.

“We have been on the tax issue for the past three days, and I told him clearly that there was no way the NFF would agree to offset the concomitant tax percentage on his salary that will be demanded by German tax authorities. We can't shoulder the responsibility of shelling out another money, between 32% to 40% of his salary, after paying the agreed monthly wage.

“The NFF and Labbadia reached an agreement in principle before we announced 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,” NFF president, Ibrahim Musa Gusau, said on Friday evening.

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).

 It will be Eguavoen’s fourth stint in charge of the three-time African champions, after earlier experience in 2005-2007, 2010, and 2022.