President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Ibrahim Gusau, has passed a vote of confidence in Super Eagles coach, Eric Chelle, saying the Franco-Malian has justified his appointment and shown Nigerians why he deserves the job.
Chelle was appointed as head coach of the Super Eagles in January 2025, a decision that initially drew criticism from many Nigerians who questioned both his coaching pedigree and the NFF’s rationale for hiring a coach whose previous team failed to go beyond the quarter-finals of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in the Ivory Coast.
Upon his appointment, Chelle was tasked with reviving Nigeria’s World Cup qualification hopes after the team failed to win any of their first four matches.
With six games left, the former Mali coach led the Eagles to four victories and two draws, a strong run that, while not enough to top the group and secure automatic qualification, was sufficient to earn Nigeria a spot in the playoffs.
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The Super Eagles will now face Gabon next month in a mini-qualification tournament in Morocco. Should they win, they will meet the winner between Cameroon and DR Congo for Africa’s sole slot in the intercontinental playoffs.
Speaking during the review of Nigeria’s World Cup campaign on Friday in Abuja, Gusau praised Chelle’s ability to transform what seemed an impossible situation into a credible fightback.
“Eric (Chelle) came in and despite the fact that a lot of people had their reservations as to how we got to the decision, but thank God he has been able to justify to Nigerians why he can be the coach of the Super Eagles,” Gusau said.
“Forgetting about all the friendly matches, let’s talk about the World Cup qualifiers. He handled six matches; he won four and drew two. If we had a little resemblance to that in the first four matches, we could have been in a different place today.
“There were a lot of issues, three coaches managing the team during this period, a lot of people talk about that, but they don’t want to talk about how this happened. We thank God that we’re here and we are going to do everything possible to see that we get to the desired goal.”
Before Chelle’s arrival, Nigeria’s World Cup hopes had nearly faded. But under his guidance, the Super Eagles pushed the Group C race down to the wire, narrowly missing out on the top spot as South Africa clinched qualification by just one point on the final day.
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