FIJ saw social media posts claiming that German coach Bruno Labbadia rejected the offer to become the new head coach of Super Eagles, Nigeria’s men’s national football team, due to threats to his life and a demand for 10% of his monthly salary over the weekend.

The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) announced the agreement with Labbadia on Tuesday via X but made another announcement on Friday stating that German tax laws had botched the deal with the coach.

Following NFF’s Friday announcement, social media posts sprung up on Facebook, Nairaland forum and X on Saturday and Sunday claiming that the botched agreement was caused by “some senators and politicians” who threatened to make life miserable for the coach.

An X user with hundreds of thousands of followers even shared it in a now-deleted post on Monday afternoon.

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CLAIMS: FIJ observed that all the posts claimed that Labbadia had made the following statement: “I quit Nigeria job just four days after my appointment. Some senators and politicians threatened to make life miserable for me if I don’t give them 10% of my monthly salary. Corruption in Nigeria system is unbelievable ” – New Nigeria Coach

On Saturday, for instance, anonymous participants posted the statement on two Facebook groups: TVC News and Arise News TV (both named after legitimate television channels in Nigeria). Accompanying this statement was a partial front-page screenshot from the Saturday edition of The Nation Newspaper.

As seen in the screenshots above, some of the words in the purported statement seem to refer to one of the headlines on the front page — Super Eagles new coach quits after four days.

A combination of the statement and the screenshot could make an undiscerning reader wrongly assume that the newspaper must have reported the claim peddled as Labbadia’s words.

It was not entirely surprising to find Victor Iroele, a Facebook user and sports analyst, resharing the statement on Sunday and crediting the newspaper as the source. Iroele posted it on his Facebook timeline and NUJ FCT Council’s page.

Iroele equally stated that the “story was culled from The NATION Newspapers” when another Facebook user tried to refute his post.

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FINDINGS: On The Nation’s website, FIJ found that the report on Labbadia’s rejection, dated Saturday, did not contain the purported statement. Quoting Kicker, a German sports platform, the publication said the “hasty announcement by the NFF’s leadership” on Tuesday was one of the reasons Labbadia cancelled the agreement.

FIJ also noticed that the screenshot of the circulated claim contained a different website link, www.nigerianewspapers.net. A search through the website reveals a news report from Saturday based on the NFF’s X update, stating that Labbadia rejected the job due to the federation’s inability to agree on tax payment.

Similarly, nowhere in the publication by Kicker was it mentioned or hinted that the coach turned down the national team coaching job because of threats or demands from senators and politicians.

A thorough search of various Nigerian and foreign news outlets, as well as a Google reverse image search, yielded no results of any interview where Labbadia stated the circulated claim.

VERDICT: The claim that Labbadia said he “quit [the] Nigeria job just four days after his appointment because some senators and politicians threatened to make life miserable for him if he did not give them 10% of his monthly salary” is false. There is no piece of evidence found showing Labbadia saying those words.