Six weeks to Nations Cup: Rohr being owed several months salary

By Wale Emosu

WITH about six weeks to the commencement of the Africa Cup of Nations, Tribunesport can reveal that Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr is being owed salary by his employer, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
The 32nd edition of Africa’s biggest football showcase kicks off in Egypt on June 21 and a source very close to the Nigeria head coach says he has not been collecting salary for sometime now.
Though the source cannot say the exact number of months of salary being owed Rohr, he said “The NFF is owing the coach several months salary.”
However, the source said that Rohr has been silent on the issue because of his resolve not to disrupt preparations for the 2019 Nations Cup, the first one Nigeria will be attending in six years.
At a round table with sports editors in Lagos last November, Rohr was less emphatic on the non-payment of his salary. He rather said he would prefer to focus on the task at hand to being distracted by such an issue.
On the appointment of ex-internationals Austin Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo and Tijani Babangida as scouts and motivation figures for the Super Eagles during the 2019 Nations Cup, the source said this definitely is not a development the Franco-German would welcome.
“He [Rohr] has his plans; you know he is German, he won’t allow it. Besides the players are being motivated by the coach and they are happy about it.
“If they [Okocha, Kanu and Babangida] follow [Amaju] Pinnick [the NFF president] to see the Eagles players in camp, Rohr won’t object, but I can tell you that he will not allow them to address the players,” the source said.
Efforts to speak to the NFF leadership by press time were unsuccessful as the mobile phones of all of them were unreachable.