Coaches lobbying to replace Keshi – Onigbinde

 

With the sacking of the Stephen Keshi as coach of the Super Eagles, some Nigerian coaches have started lobbying and jostling for the national team job.

Former Super Eagles coach, Adegboye Onigbinde, who said this during a telephone interview with our correspondent, said some indigenous coaches have sent emails to him seeking his support for the Eagles job.

Onigbinde said Nigeria still has a few coaches, who are intelligent and experienced enough to coach the Eagles successfully, and dismissed the call for a foreign coach for the national team.

He added that the removal of Keshi may affect the Eagles, considering that Keshi’s replacement would come with a new programme and may choose a different set of players.

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Onigbinde said, “I’ve been reading stories of some people saying we should bring in a foreign coach but I don’t think that is the major problem of Nigerian football. I don’t want to be personal, and modesty will not allow me to say some things here. I know the politics of some of these coaches. Some of them have sent emails to me thinking I’m in the position to help them; that they have applied and so on. It’s not my business. As of now, I’m not an insider in the running of Nigerian football. I’m just an observer.

“I cannot start mentioning names, but I know there are some intelligent experienced coaches in this country who only need to be brushed up and they will fall in line. The major problem of Nigeria is that we are not running a system of what you know but who you know; a system of who is right and not what is right. It is not only in sports.”

He added, “I was part of the system that brought Keshi into the Eagles job. Two coaches were shortlisted. I was a member of the technical committee, I did not know when the position was advertised; I did not know how many people applied; I did not know when they were shortlisted. I was just one of the 10 invited to interview Keshi and Samson Siasia. After the interview, one funny thing happened. Ten of us were in the panel; nobody collated our points before Siasia was announced to the press.

“Then after Siasia’s last match, which was against Guinea. There was an emergency meeting of the technical committee that night. We had serious competitions at hand and we were thinking of advertising and inviting coaches for interview. Then I chipped in and said we interviewed two of them. One, we claim has failed, why don’t we bring in the other person. That was how Keshi came in. At any rate, during the interview, I said Keshi was better.