Coach Yusuf
Nigeria’s top football coach, Salisu Yusuf, has been caught on camera taking cash from men posing as football agents.
The footage was captured by controversial journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas in September 2017 – and is being broadcast for the first time by BBC Africa Eye.
The chief coach of the Super Eagles, and first assistant during the World Cup, is due to lead the national team to the Olympics in 2020. (BBC)
Nigeria’s chief coach Salisu Yusuf has denied any wrongdoing after footage broadcast on Tuesday showed him accepting money from undercover reporters posing as football agents.
In a letter to the BBC, made available by Yusuf, he confirmed he met two people who introduced themselves as football agents and that they had a discussion about players for the CHAN. He said he neither promised nor committed to select the players nor asked for money, which he maintained was $750 not $1,000 as claimed. But he said he believed the money was not an inducement and fell within guidelines from the world governing body FIFA and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) about accepting gifts. “I can remember giving them my honest answer to the end that if the said players were found suitable in the selection process, they would indeed be selected,” he wrote. “I did accept $750 handed to me by one of the two agents to the two Nigerian players only as a gift of trivial and symbolic value and not as an inducement to play the two players represented by the two agents.” There was no immediate response from the NFF. (AFP)