Eguavoen To Lead Super Eagles As German Tax Law Blocks Labbadia’s Appointment
The appointment of Bruno Labbadia as the head coach of the Super Eagles has been botched by stringent regulations of German tax authorities, the Nigeria Football Federation has confirmed.
The NFF said that in the event, Technical Director of Nigeria Football Federation, Coach Augustine Eguavoen will now take charge of the Super Eagles for the upcoming 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches against Benin Republic (Uyo, 7th September) and Rwanda (Kigali, 10thSeptember).
It will be Eguavoen’s fourth stint in charge of the three-time African champions, after earlier experience in 2005-2007, 2010 and 2022.
In a statement released by the NFF on Friday, the president Ibrahim Gusau was quoted as saying that 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.
