A former coach of Nigeria, Adegboye Onigbinde, has disclosed that he has personally written to out-of-contract Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi, to quietly seek a job elsewhere.
Onigbinde spoke with a Nigerian online news portal SuperSport.com.
Of late the calls have been deafening mostly from former Nigerian managers for the erstwhile Mali and Togo coach to leave the Eagles job after he failed to qualify the country for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in a dismal fashion. The latest calls for Keshi to quite have come from Christian Chukwu, Shaibu Amodu, and Kashimawo Laloko, among others.
Onigbinde said he would not like to be seen repeating himself on Keshi and Eagles’ job as he has specifically asked him then to politely thank the president for considering him worthy for recall and bow out honourably.
Onigbinde said, “On the very day the Presidency asked him to return to his job I personally sent him a text message to politely thank Mr President for the offer and bow out honourably and quietly, too.
“Keshi respectfully replied the text message thanking me and that was it as he went ahead with the two remaining 2015 AFCON qualifying matches against Congo and South Africa, I’m sure the rest is history.
“I volunteered the advice to Keshi because I understand that he won’t work with the Presidency but a different set of people as well as an entirely different environment.
“Now that others have picked up the calls I have the privilege to have said over two months ago I won’t like to engage in an exercise that will appear repetitious so that I won’t be accused of having interest in the whole matter.
“I’m not used to pressurising people to act in certain way, I’ve passed my view directly to him, I don’t need to pressurise him further on same thing.”
Onigbinde insisted that administration is the bane of the nation’s football development while he condemned the football house for half-heartedly implementation of his suggestions on match analysis.
“The major problem of football in the land is administration, I’ve written several papers on the need for a virile technical department which is key to football development.
“In other lands it’s called technical and development department because without development then everybody could as well go to sleep. I suggested that some people be trained as match analysts but the persons I saw on the list the NFF wants to train made me to laugh.
“The major mistakes we keep repeating are to assume that ex-footballers are automatic administrators, it’s quite wrong. Jose Mourinho and Arrigo Sacchi weren’t star players but you can’t rival their administrative and technical finesse.
“Being a star player doesn’t make you sound administrator or technical expert, it’s clearly a special calling,” Onigbinde said.