Nigeria Football Federation

Everywhere in the world, the football association or federation decides the direction and future of football. When everyone else is pandering to sentiments the federation cannot afford to do same. They must at all times remain dispassionate, be able to sit back and take far reaching decisions with the larger picture in mind for the good of the game ultimately. Perhaps asking this of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is demanding too much considering its credibility issues. Now a federation must determine what it wants for its football and where it wants to take the game. Has NFF performed in this regard? Several of the various issues that led to Super Eagles’ eventual failure to qualify for the Nations Cup next year are traceable to lapses in the Glass House. For instance, the travel arrangements which goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama frowned at which led to his altercation with former coach Samson Siasia, were supposed to have been taken care of by the federation. Interestingly, when the battle was on the body gave the coach its backing, but when the chips finally settled they had to get a scapegoat to take the fall. Indeed Super Eagles still managed to qualify for previous Nations Cup tourneys in spite of the fact that the teams have been ragged for as many years, but a lot of things went into securing those tickets, not least of which is what became known as ‘Tactical.’ The rightness or otherwise of tactical is neither here nor there, but what happened during the match against Guinea in Abuja, who were the people in the federation who were supposed to take care of that aspect and what happened to the money budgeted for it? The problem is much more than a coaching one and talking about that, NFF actually went on record that they hired Siasia based on popular demand. Nowhere does a football association take a decision to hire a coach on fans’ wishes, little wonder they also kowtowed to the same pressure to fire Siasia. Fans are the most fickle and changeable factor in the mix, one moment they are here the next they are there and respond based on sentiments and emotions, federations cannot afford that, but NFF has fallen into that trap perhaps as a result of their own insecurities. Now what is the guarantee that new coach Stephen Keshi will not go the way of Siasia in the event he fails to deliver on the several daunting conditions he has been given? Another sack will likely follow and the cycle continues. A former Chairman of Lagos Football Association, Agboola Dabiri, is of the opinion that now is the time to exclude sentiments in decision making so that the game can begin to enjoy a new lease of life. “I am not going to say that the NFF does not have people who are capable of managing our football, they have a bunch of experienced people there, but the problem has always been sentiment. We must remove sentiments from whatever we do, we must strive at all times to do the right thing. If we put sentiment ahead of doing the right thing the problem will persist. When we had people like Otto Gloria and the others the process was credible,” notes Dabiri. “Even before Siasia was sacked everybody knew they were bringing in Keshi, does it have to be like that. Again, even when mistakes are made sometimes you don’t have to crucify people. Are we aware of programmes that Siasia may have wanted to put in place that did not see the light of day? All we heard was that he didn’t qualify for the Nations Cup, he failed. The same thing will happen and they will say Keshi has failed. My thinking is that there is too much sentiments in decision making and that must be addressed.” Coach Zakare Baraje minced no words when he said the administrators must rise to the occasion and take the can as it is not only the coaches that should be made to bear the brunt all the time. “I think it is not only coaches and players that should always be blamed when situations like the one where we failed to qualify for the Nations cup, the administrators themselves have also failed. Any time we fail the blame is always heaped on the coach but we need to look inwards at the administration. Keshi will succeed if the administrative side is taken care of,” Baraje points out.