Here comes Sunday Oliseh

Barring any unforeseen event, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will unveil Sunday Ogorchukwu Oliseh, 40, as the new coach of Super Eagles, our men’s football team. “And so what,” someone might be tempted to say, but I think it is serious enough to attract our attention and greater scrutiny. As reported by this newspaper last week, Amaju Pinnick, met with Oliseh in London where the offer was made and accepted. Our new coach is expected to come with a Dutch to serve as ‘technical adviser’, whatever that means in our football lexicon.

The NFF fired Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, on July 4 over ‘breaches of his contract’ as the federation’s official report said. Interestingly, the major offence of Keshi was applying to coach the Ivorian national team. The folks saddled with running our football actually sent somebody to Cote D’Ivoire to confirm if indeed Keshi applied for the job. And having discovered that his agent applied for the job before later withdrawing the application, he was fired.

Keshi’s story is one for another day except to add that the Africa Cup of Nations winning coach forgot to quit when the ovation was loudest. His best moment was winning the Nations Cup in 2013 and he should have left then even after announcing his resignation. His subsequent actions after 2013 as coach left a lot to be desired and it was only a matter of time before he was kicked out. For those of us who follow football in Nigeria, there was no way the NFF could continue with Keshi after the exit of former President Goodluck Jonathan as he was the former coach main backer. Curiously, the speed with which NFF concluded negotiations with Oliseh suggested that it must have been discussing with the former Super Eagles captain even while Keshi was still its staff. A case of a pot calling the kettle back as this was the same offence it fired Keshi for.

Now that the NFF had pushed the boat out in hiring Oliseh, how does this advance our football? How does it take Nigeria beyond its current 57th position in the latest FIFA ranking released last Thursday, and ninth in Africa behind countries like Cape Verde and Congo? Is Oliseh the best we can get at this period? How did the NFF settle for Oliseh? Was there a formal advertisement for the position or he was headhunted? Sure there are no easy answers to these questions especially with the opaque way our football is being run. It might also not be too much to assume that President Muhammadu Buhari does not seem to have the time for looking into football issues with the avalanche of issues crying for his attention even though that would be a major mistake as nothing unites Nigerians more than football.

Watching Oliseh on television talking football would show that he knows his onions as far as the game is concerned. He was not a member of the FIFA Technical Study Group for 2014 World Cup for nothing and the fact the he speaks multiple European languages would come in handy for this assignment but his lack of coaching experience at a higher level is worrisome for the herculean job. He was sporting director at Eupen, a Belgian association football club in 2007 and coached Vervietois, a third division B football club, also in Belgium between 2008 and 2009. Further, our football is perhaps at its lowest ebb in the last five decades, we do not seem to have a steady supply of good footballers any longer and this is reflected more in the number of our compatriots plying their trade in most competitive leagues worldwide. Our administrators are not different from their counterparts at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, stumbling from one corruption case to another and more interested in lining their pockets than seeing to the growth of the game.

We should also hope that his disciplinary record does not come back to hunt him as he has had issues along this line. Even though he was captain at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2002, he was not part of the World Cup squad later that year as he was excluded for disciplinary reasons. Two years after, Borussia Dortmund sacked him for punching a teammate, Vahid Hashemian, while on loan at Vfl Bochum. We can only hope that age has tempered him and that his temper would not get in the way as he set about the job nearly all Nigerians have opinions on what should be done.

On paper, Oliseh seems eminently qualified to coach the Super Eagles but his appointment is a gamble by the NFF. I hope the Super Eagles under him sore many goals like the one he scored in 1998 World Cup in France against the Spanish goalkeeper Andoni Zubizaretta.

Postscript: I could not write this column due to several reasons last week and it was touching and humbling that some people felt concerned enough to ask why. My apologies please, I hope such does not happen again.