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Finidi George set to join Rivers United as head coach

FINIDI George is on the verge of being named as the head coach of Rivers United, Naija Times has learnt.

The ex-international quit as Super Eagles head coach under acrimonious circumstances last month and he is now set to return to the Nigeria Premier Football League.

The 53-year-old for Super Eagles winger is believed to have met with the Rivers State governor Sim Wabara yesterday and agreed terms to become the head coach of the state-owned 2022 NPFL champions.

Finidi and the Rivers State government are expected to finalise the details of the agreement today after which he will sign and a formal announcement will be made.

Rivers United are looking to bounce back after a disappointing campaign in which they crashed out in the quarter-finals of the CAF Confederation Cup and finished a lowly eighth in the NPFL.

This is the second club Finidi will be handling in the NPFL since his stint as a youth coach at his former club Real Betis in Spain.

He led Enyimba to the NPFL title last year and they were still in contention this year when he resigned to take up the Super Eagles position, in which he lasted less than two months in charge.

Finidi was a Super Eagles assistant coach for almost two years, along with his Enyimba role, before he was given the head coach position upon the departure of his boss Jose Peseiro in March.

As Super Eagles head coach, Finidi won one friendly match against Ghana but drew at home to South Africa and lost to Benin Republic in Abidjan in key World Cup qualifying games before he resigned following the Nigeria Football Federation’s decision to hire a foreign ‘technical adviser’ to supervise him.

In his playing days, Finidi was an elegant right winger who was part of the Super Eagles ‘golden generation’ that won the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations and earned Nigeria’s first-ever World Cup ticket the same year.

He won the 1995 UEFA Champions League with Ajax in 1995 along with several other trophies and played for Real Betis and Real Mallorca in Spain as well as Ipswich in England in a successful playing career in Europe.

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