AT A time he should busy himself strategizing on how to ensure the success of his newly-appointed Super Eagles manager, Sunday Oliseh, Nigeria Football Federation President, Amaju Pinnick, has chosen to be the ex-international’s unsolicited chief propagandist – unwise and unnecessary.
Pinnick reportedly claimed that Oliseh snubbed several ‘big countries’ to accept the Nigeria offer – nothing but unsolicited and an unwarranted white lie!
“I can assure you Nigeria is not the first country that approached him (Oliseh) to coach their national team,” Pinnick reportedly told a local website. “A lot of big countries have approached him and I don’t want to mention those countries but he chose Nigeria.
“So to me it’s not just historic that he has come, it is biblical that he has come and by God’s grace he will deliver,” Pinnick added.
Now let’s take this one at a time: the last time I checked, Oliseh’s name was never linked with any national team job – big or small – before he became the convenient choice of Pinnick’s NFF to succeed Stephen Keshi. As a matter of fact, the last big name country to search for a coach were the reigning African champions Cote d’ Ivoire. They had a fairly long shortlist but Oliseh’s name was conspicuous for his absence. Unless, of course, if Cote d’ Ivoire are not among Pinnick’s phantom big nations.
If my memory serves me well, Oliseh waited patiently and longed almost hopelessly for Super Eagles job for his lack of a weighty CV in terms of cognate experience for the job. Oliseh got the job not because he was the best candidate – far from it, (those close to the NFF eggheads talked of their preference for a foreign coach) – but because he was the only available “untainted” indigenous “coach” with some level of goodwill from his playing days – days largely tainted by his sometimes unwise outspokenness.
It would have been nice of Mr Pinnick to name just a couple of these big countries who wanted Sunny’s technical expertise. But no, our venerable NFF boss wouldn’t want to embarrass some of his international colleagues, period.
Thank goodness, his lack of cognate experience for the job and his oft ill-informed outspokenness in his playing days as well as his being chased by these phantom big countries will have little bearing on his success or failure as Super Eagles boss. And as a patriotic Nigerian, my fervent prayer is for him to achieve great success in this assignment.
Pinnick concluded his rant by claiming Oliseh’s appointment was both “historic” and “biblical!” Laughable and very sad.
Pray guys, what’s historical about Oliseh’s appointment, and to take it to spiritual level by describing it biblical? I fear whether Mr Pinnick knows the meaning, let alone the appropriateness of the words he used in his unsolicited rush to sell Oliseh to avid Nigerian football followers.
But my real worry is that our football administrators, who have demonstrated morbid ineptitude in handling little matter of straightening an errant national team captain, have now “graduated” to charlatans who would apply any word and tell any lies just to make a spurious appointee more acceptable to the public.
I say good luck to Oliseh from the bottom of my heart, he will need a large dose of it. God help Nigeria because the future under these administrators doesn’t look promising.
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