The consensus favours using Shuiab Amodu as the head coach for the remaining two qualifiers in Nigeria’s quest for qualification to the African Cup of Nations. However, there are niggling doubts about the match-fitness of Amodu who has been out of sync for about five years.
The critical issue is what happens after. The conventional wisdom as of now clearly favours employing a seasoned foreign technical adviser in the long term. This is understandable. And for obvious reasons. Any Nigerian coach is immediately hobbled by the well-known “Nigerian factor.” This debilitation revolves around the issue of primordial factors and economic considerations beclouding the judgment of an indigenous coach.
Nevertheless, we must not mistake cause for effect. Employing a foreign coach has worked well in even the more advanced footballing powers. They have certainly not felt ashamed about employing a non-national as a coach. In Nigeria, however, the issue has to be approached from a multi-dimensional perspective.
We are aware that no foreign coach, no matter how seasoned, can work with today’s dysfunctional corruption-riven Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). This is why to avoid putting the cart way ahead of the horse, reforming the NFF has to proceed with the decision to appoint a foreign coach.
The issue is continent wide. African countries are today hobbled by constantly recycled foreign technical advisers. To procure a seasoned operator, the NFF will have to be thoroughly reformed. This should start with cutting off government funding which is the source of all the corrupt practices.
A private sector funded NFF will certainly have greater transparency. Not least because the donors have to account to their shareholders and are overseen by a regulatory body as well as by the tax authorities. This will pave the way to having proper professional football administrators and a well- structured development programme to energise the grassroots as the feeder base for the national team.
These issues have to be faced with great diligence. Concentrating on a foreign coach alone will be self-defeating. Since soccer is so engraved in our national ethos we need an all-encompassing holistic approach to revamping our soccer and not the pursuit of short term induced, self-serving illusions.