NFA's New Coaches

HOW Shuaibu Amodu would end his third tenure as Super Eagles coach is more important than the fact that he has held the position thrice. References to him as a third term coach confirm some of the forebodings about his choice.
His selection was bound to be controversial, considering that each time he held the position, he left in circumstances that overshadowed his results. Moreover, our football is now at the foot of the ladder.

After the debacle of the Nations Cup in Ghana, Nigerian football ran for weeks with uncertainties. The blighted coach Berti Vogts, who with his astounding pay package, managed to return Nigeria’s worst Nations Cup result in 28 years, abandoned the team and the Nigeria Football Association played ostrich all along.

NFA’s defence one day would be that Amodu was appointed in line with the clamour of Nigerians for an indigenous coach. That sentiment though well situated, did not mean that Nigerians wanted just any Nigerian coach. There are good coaches, who appear mostly unappointable, by the skewed standards of the NFA.

Stephen Keshi, who qualified minions Togo for the 2006 World Cup, is one. Everyone considered him a natural heir to the position. He had the pedigree – results, a rounded playing career, and the players respect him, something that is key, but missing in their relationship with Nigerian coaches.

Keshi had a major minus, he speaks his mind, he could also insist on things being done in particular ways. Nigerian football authorities do not want someone with Keshi’s convictions. Other countries were falling over themselves to pick Keshi. Mali finally engaged him.

What terms would Keshi have sought that Mali met, but Nigeria could not? Why was Keshi not considered? These questions are still agitating the minds of Nigerians. They cannot be wished away by calls for all to support Amodu, and his imposed assistants.

Insinuations that Amodu was also not the best in the interview cast blurs on the appointments, even before the results become factors in accessing Amodu. Other curious things happened.

The National Sports Commission summoned what it tagged a stakeholders meeting where sports journalists voted for their choice of head coach from those who the NFA interviewed. The sports journalists voted in support of Amodu’s appointment, meaning they cannot criticise it!

Amodu ended his two earlier tenures following rancorous encounters with her employers. His results then had the public on his side. The sophistication of the game at the international level since then has overtaken him. Our players want coaches who apply similar tactics as obtain abroad in their approach to training and the game. It will not take too long for this issue to resurface.

The NFA’s sinister motive in this appointment could be to prove that there are no Nigerian coaches fit to do the job, so it can resort to foreign coaches in the Vogts hue. They would return to Keshi soon, but it would have been too late.