Sports
Gombe-Gara Rejects Chelle $130,000 monthly salary
Chelle, on Thursday, tabled new demands from the Federal Government for him to remain with the Super Eagles. Top on his demand is a house, car, 24-hour constant electricity supply, flight tickets for his wife and children and free hand to run the team.
For former Chairman of Gombe State Football Association, Ahmed Shuaibu Gara-Gombe, everything is wrong in Chelle’s new demand.
“I don’t think it is okay,” Gara-Gombe told The Guardian. “This man just came to Nigeria to boost his CV. I said it before that Super Eagles is too big for Chelle.
“The Super Eagles raised Chelle to the global stage not him raising the team, and he now wants to ‘blackmail’ us.
“With the players Nigeria have, we are even the ones to ask a coach like Eric Chelle to pay us ‘privileged fees’.
“It is so obvious now that Chelle just created a phantom story around Olympique Marseilles that they were after his service, and a few days after, his ridiculous demands came. We are not fools. I read the demands, they are ridiculous. While at the AFCON in Morocco, Chelle started his phantom story that Algeria wanted his services and the Olympique Marseilles story followed. If he wants to go, let him go. I have not seen any impact he made on the Super Eagles.”
Gara-Gombe added: “Chelle is just lucky we are tip toeing and winning Games because of the players’ brilliance, not because of his impact.
We have polished him as a Coach. We have turned him into reckoning and now he wants to ‘blackmail us. If we retain this man for this amount, Nigeria will regret it,” he stated.
Former Super Eagles midfielder, Edema Fuludu, agrees with Gara-Gombe.
Speaking with Tidesports source, Fuludu said: “I want to believe that people are behind his demands the Nigeria way. It is disheartening to know that a coach who came to Nigeria with a low profile pedigree and fortunate to have a pool of such quality players to prosecute games, got a bronze medal, has been celebrated as if he won the AFCON.
Why won’t he make unreasonable demands?
“We have come to the threshold of anything goes for our football. Let us invest in coaching education and make our home grown coaches by training and retraining, with financial encouragement in remuneration that commensurate what foreigners get for better performance.
“I think we should allow Chelle to go irrespective of the outcome of the World Cup protest against DR Congo,” Fuludu stated.
However, former Green Eagles winger, Adegoke Adelabu, now a sports scientist, said the coach has the right to demand for any amount as wage or allowance.
“It is left to the NFF to decide whether he deserves such amount. Characteristically, we focus so much on going for competitions at all cost and not necessarily developing the national team professionally. You could see in his demands that he wants to be in complete control of the invitation and selection of the team without any interference.
“A forward looking organisation ought to have known whether we are retaining him or not depending on whether he met the objectives of the federation. The way he spelt out his demands showed that there is a problem with the running of the national team.
“We need to train our own coaches. We have enough retired footballers that we should be able to educate them scientifically to handle our national team players. My problem is not about his demands, but the NFF should tell us whether he is capable of building a befitting national team of our dream. Up till now the Federal govt turned deaf ears to the failure of the NFF despite the amount of money pumped into the training and development of the team for the World Cup. Everyone kept mute as if nothing happened,” Adelabu added.
An NFF official who pleaded anonymity, revealed that Chelle did not fulfil the main terms of the contract given to him by the NFF when he signed the contract to coach the Super Eagles last year.
“If Chelle wants to leave, he should come out boldly and tell the NFF instead of this outrageous demand of $130,000. Now, let me reveal the main two targets given to Chelle by the NFF when he signed the contract last year. First, he was told to qualify Nigeria for the 2026 World Cup and second, qualify the team for the final of 2025 AFCON tournament in Morocco. Did he fulfil these two? The answer is no.”
His inability to qualify the Nigeria for the 2026 World Cup notwithstanding, some Nigerians are of the opinion that Chelle tried his best considering Super Eagles’ poor position before he took over.
A well-known football pundit in the State, Chief Christopher Okonkwo has lauded the efforts and vision of the Super Eagles Coach Eric Chelle for going from one venue of the Nigeria Domestic Nigeria Professional Football League match to the other in monitoring Nigerian players, with a view to invite some exceptional good one discovered into the main stream of the Super Eagles team.
Okonkwo, who made the commendation in an interview at the Port Harcourt Club recently, described the positive move by Coach Chelle as a good step in the right direction, noting that the practice was how its been done in the past among any contracted coach assigned to tinker the Super Eagles team.
“Truly, it has been an old tradition in the country seeing any newly engaged Coach to lead the National team, visiting some our Nigeria League venues during the league matches to spot light some good talents that could be used to beef up some grey areas in the department of Eagles team”
He, however, frowned at the current situation where our coaches had continously been over depending on the use of foreign based players during invitation of players to the National camp, thereby, relegating the domestic home based league players to the background as if they have nothing much to offer to the team.
“I can vividly recall that the likes of great players in the mode of Finidi George, Taribo West, Kanu Nwankwo, Austin Okocha, Richard Owobokiri, Emmanuel Osuigwe among others started from Nigeria football league before they graduated to play in Europe through which they later invited to Super Eagles camp to represent Nigeria”
“Besides, I’m also of the view that going to secondary school football competitive games could equally serves as a a good platform to discover budding talents that could be nurtured to become great stars in near future”, Okonkwo frankly added.
Okonkwo, therefore, prayed that any football coach to be engaged by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to tinker the Super Eagles should be told not to confine himself in staying in big hotel alone but to be visiting some of our local league match venues, with a view to discover some good players that can be drafted into the Super Eagles team.
“Indeed, I stand to be challenged that there some young good players in the Nigeria Professional League. If spotted and exposed, could give the some of the invited foreign based players a stiff competitive fight in securing a postion in the team”, Okonkwo emphatically stated.
Ezechukwu, one of the youngest members of the Nigerian contingent at the championship in Ghana, said her ambition was to win the 100m title in style and cap it with a new personal record.
The fresh secondary school graduate explained that she is fully focused on contributing to Team Nigeria’s medal hopes and is determined to deliver strong performances across her events.
“My main objective in Ghana is to clinch the 100m title and the 4×100m,” Ezechukwu told Tidesports source.
“Nigeria can be assured of my very best and my commitment to the Team. I would love to set a new personal best in Ghana, but anything that comes, I will take it. The spirit in the team is high, and I think we are ready to go,” she said.
Ezechukwu, who was part of Nigeria’s women’s 4x100m relay squad at the World Relays in Botswana, said the experience gained from that competition has strengthened her mindset heading into the continental championships.
She admitted that she learned valuable lessons from her previous outing, including a difficult moment during the relay where an early error affected the team’s rhythm, but said she has used the experience to improve her discipline and composure.
“The secret is just being disciplined, training hard and trusting my coach and believing in God, and the result will show,” she added.
The teenager is part of a 41-member Nigerian team comprising 24 female and 17 male athletes competing at the championships, which begin today at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Nigeria are expected to compete across multiple track and field events as they aim for a strong finish against the continent’s elite athletes.
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