Former Super Eagles and Wigan Athletic striker Julius Efosa Aghahowa has urged the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to appoint a local coach to replace Finidi George, as reported by Sportblog247.com.

Aghahowa, famous for his acrobatic goal celebrations, scored 14 goals in 32 appearances for the Super Eagles during a seven-year international career. He also played for several European clubs including Bendel Insurance, Esperance, Shakhtar Donetsk, Wigan Athletic, Kayserispor, and FK Sevastopol.

Commenting on Finidi George’s resignation, Aghahowa noted that the NFF appears keen on hiring foreign coaches. “I think it’s what they want. So they will usually go for what they want, irrespective of what people will see or people’s opinions will be, but I feel we have gone past that. Right now, we should be looking inward. First of all, we don’t have money to pay foreign coaches right now. I remember how they struggled in the past,” he told Brila.

Aghahowa emphasized the need to trust local coaches to grow Nigerian football from within. “We should look inward and allow our homegrown coaches to coach the national team, but in the long term, if you look at the national team in the couple past of years, we don’t have the homegrown players included in the call-up. So, I feel that if we have our homegrown coaches, that should be an opportunity for the homegrown players to be invited to the national team, so we can make our league stronger,” he concluded.

Despite playing 750 minutes in 20 English Premier League games with Wigan Athletic, Aghahowa was unable to score a goal.

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