•So sad, Nigeria’s football authorities can’t seem to hire a coach!
Nigeria’s senior football team, the Super Eagles, has been without a coach for nearly six months running. What this means is that Nigeria has no national football coach, that face of every nation’s football prowess and pride. It also means that Nigeria’s foot-balling powerhouse, the senior team, has been circumscribed for so long, leaving it in disarray and in retreat. Friendly matches with Brazil, South Africa and Ghana have been outside our ken since then.
If football had not become one of the most significant pastimes of not only the world youth but, the entire humanity, this would be no matter of concern. But football has not only become modern man’s most loved game, it is also one of his biggest businesses. Not the least, it is one of the most structured and gainful ways of engaging today’s youth. Football, therefore, is gradually becoming among the most important national strategic assets and serious nations are not leaving anything to chance in maximising its potentials.
As in all other spheres of endeavour, Nigeria’s leadership does not seem to pay attention to matters, weighty or otherwise. In fact we tend to wonder whether our government knows the difference or cares at that.
This must explain why over six months after Nigeria’s Super Eagles disgracefully failed to qualify for the last African Cup of Nations (ACN), a tournament in which she was defending champions, she still cannot manage to install a coach. Most other countries of Africa that needed to change their coaches had done so in transparent, structured and competitive processes.
But if Nigeria was a land of aberrations, our football house under the aegis of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is the operational template of that morass. It is a house of intrigues and endless shenanigans. It has long become the migraine of a multitudinous Nigerian football lovers and the nemesis of even the world football house, FIFA. Its misbehaviour has neither limits nor methods.
After its failure at the Nations Cup, South Africa promptly recruited another coach, an open process in which even out-of-favour Nigeria’s coach, Stephen Keshi participated. It is the same report with Burkina Faso. She accomplished hers barely two weeks after the close of the Nation’s Cup last February.
After leading the Super Eagles to a glorious Nations Cup victory in South Africa in 2013, Keshi has accomplished little since then and the team has been in the doldrums. It is obvious that Nigerians do not want him any longer and indeed, would love to pave a new path. But the NFF always embroiled in self-serving intrigues has shied to do the right thing.
Need we reiterate the importance of the round leather game and the significance of a nation’s senior coach to the NFF? Need we remind them that without a respected and quality senior national coach, it would be difficult to make real progress in a nation’s football? A national coach is the face and icon of a country. Successful, trophy-winning ones are national heroes, more loved than presidents.
We appeal to the folks at the NFF to stop making a laughing stock of our great foot-balling nation; they should stop fooling around and do the right thing. There are standard templates for employing national coaches across the world. If they need our advice, they should stand Keshi down immediately and call for applications from all over the world, including Nigeria. Including Keshi! A technical panel would assess and pick the best that fits our requirements, terms and conditions.
This process is so simple; as simple as ABC and it can be done in two weeks flat!
