The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) have asked the former chief coach of Nigeria’s U-20 women team, the Super Falconets, Edwin Okon, to invite players for the international friendly match against Japan in Osaka
Okon, who is the head coach of Rivers Angels, was in charge of the women’s U-20 team that lost out at the semi-finals stage of the last edition of the FIFA women’s World Cup in acrimonious circumstances over a brawl with his assistants.
The coach, who held talks with officials of the NFF technical department, it was gathered, is being tipped as the new coach of the Super Falcons though the technical and development committee headed by Chris Green would still have interview all those who have submitted their applications for the plum job vacated by Kadiri Ikhana after a disastrous outing at the 2012 Olympic qualifier against Cameroon.
The two-legged international friendly, is scheduled for September 22 and 26, respectively, in Japan.
Confirming the mandate on Okon, an official of the NFF technical department who preferred anonymity disclosed yesterday that the coach had not been engaged officially for the Falcons job, adding that, he had only been assigned the temporary job of handling the team for the friendly, before a substantive coach would be appointed for the team.
The source also revealed that a technical committee meeting which was scheduled for Wednesday was postponed because of the Eid-el-Fitri festival, stressing that, the committee would meet to formalise things and approve the list when work resumes after the public holidays.
“It is obvious that there must be a coach who lead the Super Falcons to Japan. That was the reason we asked the former Falconets chief coach, Edwin Okon, to play that role for now until the time a substantive coach will be appointed for the team. He has been ordered to compile the list of players that will invite for camping ahead of the Japan friendly. That, however, does not mean that he has been handed the job of the Falcons chief coach, even though I am aware that he also applied for that position along with other coaches,” the reliable source said last night.
NFF president, Aminu Maigari, had earlier noted that the federation would not rush the appointment of the new Super Falcons coach to avoid the mistakes of the past, stressing that, the technical committee had been mandated to take its time to screen the applicants and make a good choice.
