Pinnick: Keshi’s reappointment not a mistake

Amaju Pinnick, president of the Nigeria Football Federation, has reiterated that the federation made no mistake in reappointing Stephen Keshi as Super Eagles’ coach.

Keshi recently signed a two-year contract with the NFF to manage the senior national team who are billed to commence their qualification campaign for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations in June, 2015.

And Pinnick said the federation got the appointment right.

“We made no mistake in reappointing Keshi,” he told BBC’s Focus on Africa.

“In his first term, Keshi did a lot to encourage the boys in the domestic League, and the boy who scored our winning goal at the Africa Cup of Nations, Sunday Mba, was playing in the domestic scene.

“We don’t live in the clouds. If we wanted a foreign coach, we would probably go for someone in the class of Jose Mourinho or Arsene Wenger. We don’t have that money presently and we don’t want to be owing our coach.”

Pinnick also spoke on the benefit of the world renowned ProZone match preparation software for which four NFF officials are currently in the United Kingdom for special training.

“In the past, we played matches blindly,” he said.

“We didn’t know enough about our opponents and we didn’t even know enough about our own players – their strengths and weaknesses. If we had the ProZone match preparation software before now, we probably would have beaten France and reached the quarterfinals of last year’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

“Our vision is to see the Super Eagles reach the semi-finals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup finals in Russia. We are very positive and we will work hard towards that.”