NFF renews Keshi’s contract

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) says it has renewed the contract of Stephen Keshi so he can continue as manager of the Super Eagles.

According to the federation, Keshi will get N5 million monthly salary besides a comfortable accommodation and other benefits which has been communicated to him.

NFF president, Amaju Pinnick, disclosed this on Friday during the 2015 budget defence of the federal ministry of sports.

“The contract was forwarded to him about a week ago and of course, in the media, we started hearing some stories,” he said.

“In the federation, we do not believe in the media, we believe in the official correspondences between the employer and the employee.

“I can assure you that within the next 10 to 15days, at worst, we should be able to make a pronouncement of this contract finally.

“We have given him time to study the contract. Like I said, correspondence should not be hearsay; correspondence should be between the employee and the employer and that is what we are waiting for.

“So, based on the reality on ground, it took them quite some time but I can assure you that the contract that we offered Coach Stephen Keshi, we went through a lot of processes that at the end of the day, if anybody sees it, he will know that it is a thoroughly done contract.

“And in terms of the finance, we advocated to pay five million naira with other provision for housing and some other auxiliary and very realistic benefits, which of course, are all enshrined in his contract.”

He said the new contract went through vigorous processes in order to avoid mistakes of the past.

“When I got elected, I went through a lot of documentation in the federation and I found that in the past, coaches were employed and there were some issues that were not sorted out.

“So, I made sure that all the committees that had to do with the employment of the coach met from the legal committee of the federation to the technical committee and because of the fact that we don’t want any form of issues after a coach have been elected, they went through all these.

“We looked at the reality on ground and I told them very clearly that what can we pay based on what we are going to be expecting, even the economy also affects the Nigerian corporate which of course, we always tried to target, to meet our budgeting provision. ”

The Super Eagles have been without a chief coach since Keshi’s contract expired after 2014 World Cup in Brazil.