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The recent appointment of Portuguese born tactician Jose Peseiro as head coach of the Super Eagles of Nigeria has been hit by two Nigerian football pundits, who agreed that more need to be done beyond just appointment if Nigerian football must make headway.
Speaking on Channels TV Sunrise Daily programme today and monitored by Sports Intelligence Magazine, Veteran Journalist and Publisher of Sports Village Square Kunle Solaja and former Gombe FA Chairman Mallam Gara Gombe both faulted the NFF in a programme that did not afford the duo ample time to reel out more solutions to the decaying state of Nigerian Football.
In his submission, Solaja who spoke from the Lagos Station of Channels TV noted that the NFF had dwelled more on ‘Football promotion and not football development” over the years and this is not in the best interest of our football.
“We only think of using football to hype ourselves not necessarily to develop football or make Nigeria a football model nation” he started.
“When you mention the name Brazil or Germany, what comes to the mind is football, but same will not be application to Nigeria in recent times even when Nigeria is mentioned today in Africa”.
“Back then, when a Nigerian travels abroad, and you tell anyone when you are a Nigerian, they easily tell you that you are from Okocha or Kanu’s country, but which player will be mentioned today” he asked, certainly none.
“Our football administrators have made Nigerian football dwell more on winning football competitions rather than developmental and that is why every foreign coach hired for Nigeria wants to stay in his country and monitor the performances of foreign-based players thereby devaluing our domestic league.
When asked on what is expected to be done to salvage the situation following the appointment of Portuguese manager Jose Peseiro, Solaja who is the only Nigerian Journalist to attend all FIFA World Cups since Italian 1990 to Russia 2018 World Cup has this to say:
“The most important thing the NFF must do following the appointment is to domicile Jose Peseiro in Nigeria”. “ He must be made to live here in Nigeria so that he can watch the local league and search for raw talents which need to be developed”.
“He cannot reside in Portugal and be managing our football from there”. “It will be detrimental to the domestic league and this will definitely not help develop the psyche of players in the local league” he concluded.
On the part of the former FA Chairman of Gombe State, Mallam Gara Gombe who spoke from the Abuja station took a swipe from the fact that our over reliance on foreign coaches without a properly designed football developmental programme has landed us back to the scratch again.
“Its unfortunate we have found ourselves in the same stage where we were some years back when Rohr was appointed”.
“Our administrators don’t have a football developmental programme” Gombe added. “We look forward to foreign Coaches and now we are looking forward to foreign players”. “What happens to players from the domestic league?”
“We won the first ever youth championship organized by FIFA in China 1986, but today we are still struggling to qualify for the world cup”.
“All NFF does is to appoint Coaches for competitions and not for development and that is the same problem we have till date”.
When Sunday Oliseh was appointed, he was given a five year developmental plan, what has happened to the development programme after he left”
Even when Westerhof was in charge, it was within his five year that he turned Nigeria football around and made us become a brand to reckon with in global football” Gombe hit hard.
Those managing our football should tell us the commercial value of the Super Eagles, they have to value it and know its value before bringing a coach”.
“You don’t just bring any coach who has failed in global spaces to come manage the Super Eagles”. “We need a first-class coach to manage the Super Eagles not just those who have failed in other nations”.
“Look at the curriculum vitae of Jose Peseiro, you will see he is a failure and has been sacked in over 70 per cent of places he has worked”.
“We cannot turn the Super Eagles to a rehabilitation ground where you just bring any coach who has not succeeded anywhere to come manage our national team”
“Jose Peseiro has an antecedent” Gombe insisted, his CV is not good enough to manage even Gombe United, so why should such a person now manage Super Eagles of Nigeria
Super Eagles is a very big brand, we need first-class coaches to manage it not just any coach on the street”.
The NFF announced the appointment of Jose Peseiro as head coach of the Super Eagles, the Portuguese gaffer is expected to take over after the Africa Cup of Nations which holds in Cameroon early next year.
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