Falcons get Swedish coach

Posted by admin Headlines, Soccer, Sports, Uncategorized Sunday, January 28th, 2018

Idris Adesina

The Nigeria Football Federation on Thursday signed an agreement with former Sweden coach Thomas Dennerby to manage the Super Falcons.

The eight-time African champions have been without a coach since they won the 2016 African Women’s Cup of Nations in Cameroon.

In a statement, the NFF said Dennerby, signed a four-year contract with the federation to replace Florence Omagbemi, who was the last coach to manage the team.

His appointment comes after American Randy Waldrum rejected the job in December, after he had been announced in October as the team’s new manager.

According to the NFF, Dennerby is expected to come with an assistant Jorgen Petersson, who was nominated by him.

NFF 2nd vice-president Shehui Dikko said he was happy that the deal went through.

“The NFF decided to go for a coach of the calibre of Thomas Dennerby for three reasons: to sustain and enhance the Super Falcons’ dominance on the African scene; to take the Falcons and the other women’s teams to the next level of challenging for laurels at global competitions like the Olympics and the World Cup and; to generally lay the foundation for the real development of women’s football in our country,” Dikko was quoted as saying by thenff.com.

“Dennerby will live in Nigeria most of the time and support the other women’s teams whenever he has the time. The contract is until the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo in the initial, with the right for automatic renewal subject to meeting performance milestones as agreed.”

The federation said the Nigerian coaches who would work with Dennerby and Petersson would be announced later.

Dennerby played for nine years with Hammarby IF in the Swedish Allsvesnkan and played in the European Cup in 1983 and 1985. He won 34 caps for the Swedish junior teams between 1975 and 1981.

He coached the Swedish women’s senior team between 2005 and 2012, during which the team played at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and the 2007 and 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup finals, winning bronze at the latter tournament.

-Punchwp_posts