Chelle to Coach Super Eagles and U-23 Team with New Contract

Nigeria’s sports leaders have agreed on a new contract for Super Eagles head coach Eric Chelle. He will also manage the national Under-23 team as part of a long-term football plan.

This decision came from a meeting on Tuesday at the National Sports Commission (NSC) headquarters in Abuja.

Key figures at the meeting included NSC Chairman Shehu Dikko, NSC Director-General Bukola Olopade, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President Ibrahim Gusau, NFF General Secretary Mohammed Sanusi, and Chelle.

After the meeting, Mr Dikko announced that they have concluded discussions about the coach’s future. The NFF will now handle the formal paperwork.

“It’s a new contract and a new remuneration which I think the NFF will do the necessary to now be able to finalise it,” Mr Dikko said.

“But I think I can confirm to you, we have agreed on a new term sheet with the coach, and the NFF will put it on paper. But I think we have agreed on something with the coach about his remuneration.”

The NSC is working to support President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. Dikko said the new package will also cover Chelle’s assistants and include performance targets.

“We’re going to also take care of his assistants who are helping him, and there are other benchmarks that we have put on the table. And I’m sure the coach was very, very excited about it.”

A key outcome of the Abuja meeting is appointing Chelle to lead the national Under-23 team, known as the Dream Team. This move aims to create a single technical approach for Nigeria’s youth and senior teams.

“So on that aspect, we also agree with the coach that the coach will also take care of the under-23 national team because we can see the young people that are already coming up to the Super Eagles,” Mr Dikko said.

“Instead of having different ideas, let’s have the same ideas from under-23 to the Super Eagles.”

Under this plan, extra technical staff will assist the Under-23 team during match schedule overlaps.

“If there are clashes in the matches, then the people in our addition will do the matches while they do the Super Eagles,” the NSC chief explained.

“The objective is they have to be constructive, actually, now. It is now that we have to start building and bringing in the young ones that will join the team.”

Nigeria’s Under-23 team holds a special spot in African football history. The Dream Team was the first African nation to win Olympic football gold after beating Argentina at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Nigeria also won silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and bronze at the 2016 Rio Games, being the only African country to win all three Olympic medals in men’s football.

But the team has faced challenges lately, missing out on the last two Olympic tournaments in Tokyo and Paris. Officials believe joining the Under-23 team with the Super Eagles will help develop new players and ease their transition to the senior team.

They also talked about Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The Super Eagles lost to DR Congo in the African play-off series. The NFF questioned the eligibility of some Congolese players, but FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee dismissed the protest, ending Nigeria’s hopes.

This setback means Nigeria has missed two FIFA World Cups in a row, having also failed to qualify for Qatar 2022.

Dikko said the focus should now be on rebuilding.

“We have the next AFCON. We have the next World Cup. Now we have to start preparing now. We have to start putting our heads together to make sure all the mistakes and all the difficulties that we have suffered would not happen again,” he said.

“The issue is to learn from your mistakes and see how we can make it better.”

Dikko stressed that giving Chelle more duties is not meant to overwhelm him.

“It’s not about crowding the coach. If you go and ask crowding the coach, he will move up. No. It’s about turning the rebuilding into a foundation.”

The NFF will share details of Chelle’s new contract and the expanded coaching team soon as they prepare for the next Africa Cup of Nations and the 2030 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.