John Enoh, the Minister of Sports Development, has described the premature announcement of Bruno Labbadia for the Super Eagles head coach role as embarrassing and regrettable.

Despite the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) announcing the German tactician for the vacant role, the 58-year-old declined the offer.

According to reports, the NFF failed to reach contractual agreement with the former Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg manager.

Labbadia was expected to be in charge of the Super Eagles ongoing AFCON qualifiers matches against Benin and Rwanda.

Speaking on Arise TV's morning show on the state of sports governance in Nigeria, the minister disclosed that the NFF claimed Labbadia had given them the green light to proceed with the official announcement.

"The [Bruno] Labbadia issue occurred the way it did and was very embarrassing. As soon as it happened, what I did was to get across to the NFF and to say, 'You didn't conclude the discussions and negotiations so why did you go public on this?' and then they tried to explain that having done this and that, they sought permission from the coach [Labbadia] to issue the statement.

"It doesn't excuse the embarrassment; it is a regrettable one, that shouldn't happen to a country like Nigeria. Unfortunately, Nigerians may not be able to know enough of the back and forth that goes on behind the scenes because I constantly got briefing on what was going on until I got to know of that we have to play our first match without a substantive coach."

In the interim, the NFF appointed sporting director Austin Eguavoen to be in charge of the team for the 2025 AFCON qualifiers against Benin Republic and Rwanda.

Nigeria beat Benin Republic 3-0 in their first game of the qualifiers at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium in Uyo last Saturday, September 7.

The team will return to action against Rwanda at the Stade Amahoro in Kigali later today (Tuesday, September 10).