The Nigerian Football Federation has remained a microcosm of the Nigerian malaise. As a subset of all that is bad with the Nigerian nation, the then NFA and now NFF has continued to be a cesspit through which the political class continues to drain the nation. As it is with the NFF so it is with all the sports associations in the states. Merit has always taken the back stage while considerations for appointments are made. For that reason growth has remained stunted in sports because for as long as corruption persists, we shall never get it right.
How is it that we do not see the benefits of what is clearly a low-hanging fruit to tap for the benefits of our teeming population of youths who are ever-ready hands to be recruited for nefarious activities?
Since after Coach Otto Gloria, all we have had are football coaches who have only come to Nigeria to boost their profiles. We have never competed for recognizable hands as coaches. The reason for our under par sports administration is not far-fetched. The reason for our inability to stand out like Jamaica in athletics and Brazil in football is not for want of the requisite talents but for the lack of discipline and corruption.
We are sorry if this seems like a rehash but how do you avoid this when on a daily basis you are assailed by actions and decisions taken by our so-called sports ministry and administrators of sports that present us as a nation of unserious people?
For about six years, or thereabout, we were forced to put up with a certain character called Gernot Rohr as the Super Eagles coach. Rohr took over from Sunday Oliseh as Nigeria coach in August 2016.
Before coming to the Eagles, he had managed the national teams of Gabon, Niger and Burkina Faso. The Super Eagles job remains his biggest.
He led the Eagles to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where the team failed to reach the second round and to win the bronze medal at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt.
As Eagles manager, Rohr reportedly earned $45,000 as monthly salary, pays the team’s video analyst, chief scout as well as the fitness and goalkeeper trainers from his wages, it was learnt. All Rohr could give for that huge pay was a bronze medal in 2019 and we retained him for six years. Only corruption and ineptitude or both could have made that possible.
According to the terms of his contract, for severing ties with him Nigeria will pay him more than N600 million, again for an under par performance as the Eagles coach. Meanwhile, he was at best a part-time coach of the Eagles. He spent all his time gallivanting around Europe and assembling players a few days before encounters to deliver underwhelming performances, year in year out for the six years!
Under Rohr, you would watch the Super Eagles and not tell what is the pattern or philosophy of the team. For all of those six years, all he did was invite the player that scored the highest goals, the midfielder with more regular appearances and the players in grade A teams in Europe for games and they would wobble and fumble (apologies to Fanny Amun) from game to game.
After sacking him eventually, the NFF again has gone to the backyard of Europe to scout another anonymous third-rate coach to replace him. The NFF says his name is Jose Peseiro. The only famous thing about this man is that he is a namesake of the Roma coach.
The Portuguese, we are told, comes highly recommended by his compatriot, Jose Mourinho, according to NFF President, Amaju Pinnick.
Peseiro will be at next month’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament, although Augustine Eguavoen will be in charge of the team. According to his profile, Peseiro is 61 years old and began his coaching career in 1991 as a player-coach with Union Santarem in the Portuguese fourth tier.
His big break came in 2003, when he was named as an assistant to Carlos Queiroz at Real Madrid.
Peseiro has coached clubs in Portugal, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Romania, United Arab Emirates and Egypt. During his managerial career, he has won two titles – the Egyptian Premier League with Al Ahly in 2016, and the Portuguese Cup with Braga in 2013. He failed to qualify Saudi Arabia for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and was sacked after losing to Syria in the AFC Asian Cup.
Peseiro failed to get Venezuela past the group stages of the 2021 Copa America and resigned in August, having not been paid for over a year amidst the South American country’s economic crisis.
NFF said they decided to appoint Peseiro as Super Eagles head coach due to his wealth of experience. According to NFF Vice President, Shehu Dikko, who made this known in an interview with ESPN, “He has coached across the world; in Asia, in Europe, South America and in Africa. He has worked with big coaches like (Jose) Mourinho and (Carlos) Queiroz, coached at a big club like Real Madrid, coached big players and small players, coached in the World Cup qualifiers, UEFA Cup, UEFA Champions League and so on. He is also well-educated, with a master’s degree in Sports Science.”
What is the haste about contracting a white-skinned, so-called coach even before the termination of the appointment of Rohr? Shame to all those behind this; corruption is at the heart of it all. Period!
Dikko was also quoted to have said, “He might not have won anything. But we believe he’ll bring value to our team.” No, he will only bring value to the pockets of those behind this continued descent to mediocrity.
Getting a foreign coach for the national teams must not be for the sake of seeking a white skin but for the purpose of adding value which must be substantial and tangible, otherwise we can simply make do with our local players who are equally well-traveled and have featured for some of the best teams in the world.
How do you rate a coach who has never won any title and yet he is good enough to be coach of Nigeria? What measurable yardstick was used in arriving at his choice? Beyond being foreign, what did Rohr actually do for the nation for all of the six years of his stay? No sincere person can say he or she was pleased watching the Super Eagles under Rohr yet, he stayed this long and was handsomely rewarded for his mediocre performance as coach. It is one thing to play well and lose and not to play well and still lose. The Eagles for all of those years were basically playing individually, with little or no team cohesion. Watching the Eagles play even when they win, you get the feeling that the team is a disaster waiting to happen.
Some of these misplaced priorities only end up accentuating beliefs in many quarters that these coaches are probably proxies for some clandestine underhand dealings. At our level of development and enormous potential, we cannot be getting just any second or third-rate coach from just any corner of Europe.
Recall that this is the same NFF that recently recalled a disgraced coach to the national team in a country of over 200 million people. All we deserve is a coach the NFF Ethics Committee found guilty of collecting the sum of 1,000 US dollars in bribes and banned him from any football activity for one year with payment of a fine of 5,000 US dollars.
The same NFF reinstated a coach who at best can be allowed to participate in club football but certainly not as national team coach. What would the rest of the world think of us?
For all intent and purposes, the difference between Peseiro and any local coach is just the colour
