Nigeria’s football authorities are playing with fire regarding qualification for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Essentially, less than two months to the next qualifying games due between June 3 and 11, the Nigeria Football Federation has yet to name a substantive coach for the Super Eagles. This strongly suggests confusion, administrative incompetence, and overconfidence on the part of the NFF chiefs. It might turn out to be fatal. This way, the Eagles sleepwalked in the last qualifiers and missed the Qatar World Cup 2022.

The diffident dissonance from the NFF and the Federal Ministry of Sports elicits troubling despondency. Citing the need to be diligent in picking a coach that will lead Nigeria to the World Cup, the football house has held Nigerians in suspense for weeks. In February, the tenure of Jose Peseiro, who led the Eagles to the silver medal in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, expired.

Instead of replacing the Portuguese, the NFF used Finidi George in the interim for two friendly internationals last March with mixed results. In the search for a new coach, the NFF is undecided whether to go for a Nigerian like Emmanuel Amunike, retain George, or hire another European gaffer.

With this, the NFF board, led by Ibrahim Gusau, is preparing to fail once again. If the NFF knows its brief, hiring a coach for the Eagles is not as difficult as the organisation is making it to be.

It will amount to a major setback if Nigeria were to miss the 2026 World Cup Finals. For the first time, nine teams will fly the continent’s flag in the Mundial after FIFA expanded it to 48 teams. Africa, formerly represented by five teams, could even get a 10th team through the play-offs. It will be a shame for Nigeria to miss this global fiesta holding in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Disturbingly, the Eagles look like they will fail in consecutive qualifying. The two results from the two rounds of matches in November hint at a shabby campaign. In the first round, the Eagles struggled to come from behind against Lesotho at home, drawing 1-1. The team’s fortune remained shaky on matchday two as the Eagles also had to come back to draw 1-1 against Zimbabwe.

As the Eagles falter, Rwanda lead Group C on four points ahead of South Africa (three points). In rounds three and four, Nigeria face South Africa and the Benin Republic home and away respectively. These rounds are not to be toyed with, as the NFF is doing.

South Africa proved their mettle against Nigeria in the AFCON 2023 semifinals in February, before losing losing 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw after extra time. Bafana Bafana will not be pushovers although their AFCON team contained mainly home-based players.

In this contest, no team is a minnow, but by delaying naming a coach, the NFF is treating it so. Nigeria treated World Cup 2006 qualifying similarly and paid the price. After that tragedy, Nigeria qualified for the 2010, 2014, and 2018 finals before losing to Ghana in 2022.

But there is little time between now and June. Most of the players will be tired after the European season. The coach needs time to go on scouting missions and choose training sites well ahead of matches. There is therefore a need to have a strategy in place to pull the loose ends together. To avoid another disaster, the NFF must wake up from its slumber.

Quickly, it should name a coach for the team. It can head hunt a coach to meet its requirements.

The fund to pay salary is usually a tempest. The NFF should avoid this. If it picked a Nigerian, it should quit its habit of owing Nigerian coaches.

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