Salisu Yusuf Suspended from Eagles Job for One Year

Duro Ikhazuagbe

Super Eagles Coach, Salisu Yusuf, 56, who was filmed receiving money from two players’ agents may have been suspended from the Nigerian job for one year.

Although there is no official statement from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) yet on the coach, THISDAY check has revealed that the committee set up to investigate the incident allegedly indicted the former Kano Pillars gaffer in its report to the Glass House.

The investigation team led by Head of NFF’s Integrity Unit, Dr Christian Emeruwa, THISDAY learnt, indicted the coach and therefore recommended for his suspension from the Eagles job.

Salisu who was grilled after returning to the country from the UK where he went for a hip surgery, THISDAY further learnt, was confronted with the glaring details of his complicity in the matter as recorded by the Ghanaian journalist.

It is this development that has informed why the coach was dropped from Super Eagles trip to Victoria to play Seychelles in an AFCON 2019 qualifier this weekend.

None of the top NFF officials contacted last night was ready to speak on the matter.

BBC published footage showing the home-based Eagles and Nigeria Olympic team coach allegedly receiving cash (about $1,000) from Ghanaian investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas to aid the players’ selection to the national team

Salisu who has been Gernot Rohr’s assistant since 2016, led the Super Eagles to a second place finish at the 2017 WAFU Cup of Nations in Ghana and as well as at the African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Morocco in February. He was also at the World Cup in Russia, where he was one of the assistants to Rohr.

In that video filmed in September 2017, the coach was shown meeting with Anas’s Tiger Eye agency and accepting the cash ostensibly to ensure that the two players are selected for the CHAN tournament which took place in Morocco in January and February.

Yusuf was also offered 15 percent of future player sales should the figures in question secure transfers on the back of the tournament.

In a prepared statement to the BBC, the coach admitted receiving the money but denied any wrongdoing.

“I did accept $750 handed to me by one of the two agents to the two Nigerian players only as a gift of trivial and symbolic value and not as an inducement to play the two players represented by the two agents, as Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Tiger Eye would want you to believe,” Salisu said.