President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick, has lifted the lid as to why the nation’s football governing body axed Franco-German tactician Gernot Rohr as Super Eagles coach.

Pinnick told Channels Television in an interview that the NFF took the decision as a step to avert a disaster.

“He (Rohr) happens to be the longest-serving manager of the Super Eagles. We gave him all the support, but we didn’t want to wait for a disaster to happen before parting ways. The last two games were very tough games for us.”

“It wasn’t an individual decision; it was a collective decision by the entire executive committee. We were winning our games … there are a lot of things we took into cognisance. When you part ways, you don’t want to start ascribing blames; you just let it go and face the future with renewed hope and renewed zeal.” Pinnick said.

We did everything that we could, but one major factor was that discipline in the team is lost practically. In the dressing room, discipline in the team was at its lowest edge and once you remove discipline, that foundation in the team has cracked,” he said.

The president did not fail to mention indiscipline in the squad as a matter pressing urgency which if not checked can ‘militate against the team’. Also he made mention of the NFF owing Rhor a measure of his salary.

“Players now talk back at you, players believe that they are indispensable. A lot of factors that will now militate against the team. We are only owing about two matches of all the matches they played in both AFCON qualifiers and World Cup qualifiers.

“For Gernot Rohr, I know we paid him for about five months. We were owing him for a couple of months, then we cleared about five months.” Pinnick concluded.

Austin Eguavoen has been named Eagles coach on interim basis and will be the man to lead the dugout when Eagles gun for the Africa Cup of Nations AFFON ’21 title next month in Cameroon.

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