Keshi: NFF waits on Presidency

Stephen Keshi

The Nigeria Football Federation members are at a loss over how to handle their practically hanging relationship with Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi.

A member of the Federation confessed to our correspondent that a lot of discussion and persuasion have to be done with higher authorities to get out of the logjam where they have found themselves with Keshi’s return as the coach of Nigeria.

He said, “The biggest challenge is the silence from ‘above’ on the matter; since we fell out of the Nations Cup, it has been like death all around.

“The situation needs a lot of wisdom to handle. I have never seen anything like this since I got to know about football administration. I have never seen where two strange bedfellows are forced together as we have in Nigeria now. If people are elected or appointed into office, they should be given some free hand to take certain decisions. The NFF board I believe is good enough to determine who should coach the team at any given time just as it is in other countries. Now the forced union has not helped anybody.

“It is like a minor thing now but Nigerians will feel the impact of missing the 2015 African cup which the competition starts. I am sure that’s when it will properly dawn on us that we have been turned into spectators. We have no reason not to qualify for this competition; the group was fair enough for us. We couldn’t have had a fairer mix of teams.”

The official lamented that it is hoped that someday somebody from the top will take a decision that will change a lot of things and for the game at the national level to take a recovery path. They are also hoping and praying, he said, that Keshi will choose to move on and get another job.

“But that’s honourable. That is what coaches do all over the world. Any coach sure of himself does not wait to be pushed around but resigns. Is there any difference between now and the road to the 2012 Nations Cup? We didn’t qualify and (Samson) Siasia had to go. That is the normal way to run football.”

The NFF had asked Keshi go and then a former coach of the team Shaibu Amodu was appointed on an interim basis before Keshi was recalled on the orders of President Goodluck Jonathan. The NFF president Amaju Pinnick had announced that they were already in search of a foreign coach before Keshi was recalled.