By John Egbokhan

The Nigeria Football Federation plans to tell Coach Stephen Keshi to accept a pay cut when he is offered a new contract, a top official of the football ruling house has told Saturday Sports Vanguard.

Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi

Keshi’s future as Eagles coach appears to have been settled, following the resolve of the new NFF Executive Committee, presided over by Mike Umeh to begin talks with the former Togo and Mali manager.

A source said last night that they were prepared to extend Keshi’s contract, which elapsed at the end of the World Cup in Brazil last month, as long as Keshi indicates his interest to coach the Super Eagles.

The source added that the NFF will tell Keshi to accept a pay cut because the new board does not want to offer something that they cannot sustain and face bad press and general condemnation by Nigerians when salaries were owed in the future.

We learnt that the previous board of Aminu Maigari had initially agreed to pay Keshi N3m when Samson Siasia was sacked, following Eagles failure to qualify for the 2012 Africa Cup.

of Nations but that Maigari had out of generosity increased Keshi’s salary to N5, which in the course of the duration of the deal, the NFF at times, had difficulties in paying as and when due.

It was based on these grounds that the NFF said they will tell Keshi to accept a pay cut in the general interest of the game, adding that the federation was confident that the coach will see reasons with the football ruling house by accepting the offer..

Meanwhile, another board member has told Saturday Sports Vanguard that the NFF will request Keshi to provide it with a technical report of the Super Eagles outing at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, where the African champions crashed out in the round of 16.

The NFF believes that such a detailed report from Keshi will aid it to prepare the team better for improved performance in subsequent tournaments.