Reports that the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, is clamouring for the appointment of another local coach to head the Super Eagles may not be true after all.

Social media reports in the early hours of yesterday indicated that the minister is at war with officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) over the choice of a new coach for the Super Eagles.

According to the report, the sports minister and top officials of the NFF had an emergency meeting on Monday, where he directed the football body to shelve its plan of hiring a foreign coach for the Super Eagles following the failure to qualify for Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.

However, the minister has distanced himself from such directive, saying the NFF is at liberty to decide who becomes the next coach of the Super Eagles.

Speaking with The Guardian yesterday, the Special Assistant, Multimedia, to the Sports Minister, Toyin Ibitoye, said Dare is not involved in discussions on a new coach for the Super Eagles.

“It is true that the Minister of Youth and Sports Development and some board members of the NFF met on Monday, but he never gave any directive on the hiring of a local or foreign coach for the Super Eagles. As far as the minister is concerned, the decision to hire a coach for the national team should be taken by the NFF,” Ibitoye stated.

According to an online report by www.bestchoicesports.com.ng, Dare has been under immense pressure from the Presidency following the failure of the Super Eagles to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. The report said he told the NFF to employ a former international as the new Eagles coach during their meeting in Abuja on Monday.

The directive did not go down well with NFF officials, who insisted on having a foreign coach for the Super Eagles qualifiers for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in June.

The NFF, on Thursday last week, sacked the entire technical staff of the Super Eagles after the team failed to beat the Black Stars of Ghana for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Meanwhile, some football analysts have heaped the blame of Super Eagles’ failure to qualify for Qatar 2022 World Cup on Dare.

To them, the minister’s insistence on an indigenous coach for the team after Augustine Eguavoen’s failure in the round of 16 at the AFCON tournament in Cameroun, stopped the NFF from bringing in Portuguese tactician, Jose Peseiro, whom the federation had pencilled for the job.