The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has announced that Bruno Labbadia’s appointment as Super Eagles head coach has been terminated due to stringent German tax regulations.
As a result, Technical Director Augustine Eguavoen will take charge of the team for the upcoming 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches against, Benin Republic (Uyo, September 7), Rwanda (Kigali, September 10).
This marks Eguavoen’s fourth stint as Super Eagles coach, following previous tenures in 2005-2007, 2010, and 2022.
According to NFF President Ibrahim Gusau, the federation cannot offset the concomitant tax percentage on the German coach’s salary.
According to him, the issue of offsetting the coach’s tax was not part of the initial agreement before the announcement of his appointment.
“We have been on the tax issue for the past three days, and I told him clearly that there was no way the NFF will agree to offset the concomitant tax percentage on his salary that will be demanded by German tax authorities. It is not possible for us to shoulder the responsibility of shelling out another money, between 32% to 40% of his salary, after paying the agreed monthly wage.
“The NFF and Mr. Labbadia reached an agreement in principle before we made the announcement that he would become the Head Coach of the Super Eagles. The tax details were never part of our discussions, and he had personally agreed to all terms before the tax issue came up.
“We were doing our best to be flexible in the discussions but he was adamant that the NFF had to pay the full tax amount as well. We simply cannot do that,” President of NFF, Gusau, said on Friday evening.
The NFF had on Tuesday announced its agreement with the German tactician to mount the saddle as the head coach of the Super Eagles.
Labbadia would have become the sixth German, after Karl-Heinz Marotzke (who had two stints between 1970 and 1974), Gottlieb Göller (1981), Manfred Höner (1988-1989), Berti Vogts (2007-2008) and Gernot Rohr (2016-2021) to lead the Super Eagles.
