NFF Picks German Rohr As Eagles Coach

The President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick has confirmed the selection of Gernot Rohr, a German, as the next manager of the Super Eagles.

The NFF boss confirmed that the German, who is currently working on development programmes for the German Football Federation, is expected to arrive in Nigeria on Saturday (today), PUNCH reports. He is also expected to be in Lagos on Sunday where he would be at the stands to watch the league match between Ikorodu United and Sunshine Stars.

Pinnick said, “We are just finalising the little details left. The work started quite a while ago but there was the need to wait until everything confirmed before making it public.”

It was also confirmed that he would be introduced to Nigerians in Abuja on Monday.

“The man is coming to live in Nigeria and work with our vision to develop Nigerian football. Qualifying for tournaments don’t really translate to proper development and so he is coming to stay here with his family and work with the federation and Nigerians,” Pinnick said.

The German coached Bordeaux to the UEFA Cup final in 1996, where they lost to Bayern Munich over two legs. Bordeaux’s run to the final included a famous 3-0 win over AC Milan in the quarter-finals, his records sourced by our correspondent showed. The German was also the Sports Director of Eintracht Frankfurt from October 1998 until April 1999.

Rohr has also worked with Étoile Sportive du Sahel and FC Nantes. He replaced French coach Alain Giresse as the coach of Gabon. He managed Niger from September 2012 to 2014 before taking up a job with Burkina Faso but was sacked by the West African country later. He was short-listed for the Guinea national team job in July 2016 before the Nigerian offer came up.

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NFF Leadership Tussle: Chris Giwa Drags Pinnick To Supreme Court

Barrister Chris Giwa still harbours hope of reclaiming the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) presidency from Amaju Pinnick and is heading to the Supreme Court.

He revealed this in a press conference yesterday, explaining his reasons for taking the case to the highest court in the land.

“We have been able by the grace of God to appeal to the Supreme Court. Appeal is different from stay of execution. They are two different processes. We have filed an appeal and we have filed a stay of execution saying that we do not agree with the judgment,” Giwa said.

“The Court of Appeal has given us 19th of September, 2016, for that motion of stay of execution to be heard. Once that is done by law that judgment is ineffective till when that motion is argued.

“When we got our ruling from the Federal High Court (Jos), I know some people may ask why you held on to it. Yes we held on to it because the defendant there did not ask for stay (of execution). If they had applied for stay that judgment wouldn’t have been effective till when the Court would give a pronouncement.

“But they never did that, all they did was they applied for stay of proceedings and ask for leave to appeal and when we went to the Court they withdrew the stay of proceedings. Stay of proceedings is different from stay of execution; they are not the same motion. So they withdrew it and they relied on leave to appeal and went to the Appeal Court.

“Luckily for us, the Judge at that date hands off from the case since he has granted them the leave to appeal. As we all know that Appeal Court is not the final court, the Supreme Court is the final court.

“If this judgment they got came from the Supreme Court there is nothing like stay (of execution). But because it is coming from the court that is not the final court we stand on the advantage to ask for stay (of execution) and which we have done.

“So, the Court of Appeal cannot effect that judgment because there is a motion pending before them. I want to say this because we have gone to the Supreme Court I can tell you very well that the Appeal Court has nothing to do with the matter again.

“The Court of Appeal ruling delivered by His Lordship Joseph Tine Tur delivered his final judgment in the appeal without allowing the respondents right of legal representation of our choice.

“We have appealed to the Supreme Court against the ruling of 21st July 2016 and the judgment of 25thJuly 2016. The effect of this application is that the judgment of 25th July shall be stayed pending the hearing of the application.

“In view of the foregoing, we have taken patience to pursue the slow but sure processes in our laws. We have secured all legal decisions that guarantee our place in the management of Nigerian football.

“With the quality of patience we have exhibited, we shall explore all legal means without violence. This is not to say we are not capable of violently taking what belongs to us otherwise, we would have posited that if the next stage will warrant forceful execution, we may consider same.

“We are going to inform the structure in a matter of days agree and take all steps to take our legal mandate.”

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Keshi’s Burial Rites Begin Today

The final journey of Nigeria football legend Stephen Okechukwu Keshi will begin in Benin City, Edo State today.

Mr. Amaju Melvin Pinnick, the President of Nigeria football Federation (NFF) will lead the delegation to the final rites. Others are, Mr. Frank Ilaboya (Chairman of the Edo State Football Association), Mr. Neville Bekederemo (Chairman of NPFL side Warri Wolves FC) and Mr. Edema Fuludu (Chairman of Delta State League Management Company).

Keshi, one of only two men to have won the Africa Cup of Nations as player and as coach, died in Benin City on Wednesday, 8th June at the age of 54.

The charismatic libero captained the Senior National Team for 11 years, winning the Africa Cup of Nations gold, silver and bronze.
In 2013, as Coach of the Super Eagles, Keshi lifted the Cup of Nations again after Nigeria defeated Burkina Faso 1-0 in the final at Soccercity in Johannesburg.

In a 44 –month spell as head strategist of the Super Eagles, Keshi also took the team to the Round of 16 at the FIFA World Cup, led the team to the FIFA Confederations Cup and qualified Nigeria for the African Nations Championship for the first time, winning bronze at the competition.

Family sources have also confirmed that the remains of the legend will be interred at his hometown, Illah, on Friday.

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Olympic Jamboree And Failed NFF Foreign Coach Recruitment!

By Segun Odegbami

This page was missing last week.Last Thursday, to my utter consternation, my laptop would not boot after I turned it on. That was when I realized how vulnerable I have become to modern technology. I am now enslaved to my laptop and my telephone. Between them, they hold my life in a strangulating vice. They have become my inseparable companions, accompanying me everywhere like triplets. When one breaks down, as did my laptop, I become lost, realising rather shockingly how totally dependent I have become on these two ‘innocent’ toys that now rule over my life.
As the night wore on and I became desperate, with time ticking slowly but steadily towards the deadline for submission of my page, my helplessness became so agonizing I fell ill. I was sleepless through the night and had to surrender as dawn broke to the elements. I could not help the situation.
Meanwhile, so much drama in sports was exploding around the world, everyone screaming for my comment and even intervention in a few cases – the search for a new coach for the Super Eagles was approaching a dramatic climax, even as some of us wondered how NFF officials were going to get away with what was obviously looking more and more like a play on the intelligence of Nigerians by selling them ‘reconditioned’ ordinary foreign coaches in the washed cloaks of great coaches; the ugly stories of Nigerian athletes training abroad who, starved of funds, have turned into beggars on the streets of Atlanta and elsewhere; the resignation of Nigeria’s influential basketball captain on the eve of the team’s greatest challenge after qualifying for the Olympics; the EFCC’s renewed interest in investigating funds previously allocated to sports, from COJA 2003 till the present, that need prying into as is on-going in other sectors, to fish out the thieves in the ongoing fight against corruption; the global doping scandals that threaten to destroy the Olympic movement if not handled carefully and justly, and that also reminds Nigerians of their own experiences with doping and how one such case inspired a Nigerian to prove the world wrong by winning Nigeria’s first ever Olympic Gold medal, four years after an unjust ban; and so on and so on.
Those were the things playing on my mind last Thursday. Since then there have been several developments.
The President of Nigeria, Muhammed Buhari, hosted part of the Nigerian delegation going to the Olympics and announced the release of the funds that should have been released eons ago to make training of the athletes and Nigeria’s quest for medals both meaningful and realisable.
His remarks during the event clearly showed he was not taken in by the empty promises of officials that Nigerians should expect a haul of medals now that funds have been released. There is nothing like that on the cards. Medals are not won by fire brigade, last minute funding of preparations to the Olympics. Winning a medal at such games requires proper scripting, planning and disciplined execution of programmes for between six to eight years of dedicated hard work and plenty of good luck.
Nigeria has not done anything since London 2010 to even justify winning a wooden medal not to talk of Bronze, Silver or Gold.
Some officials must know some things the rest of us do not to be making such promises. They did so in the past and got away with not delivering anything.
This time, it is a different government and a different mentality. Questions will be asked and people required to account for their deeds and promises. So, I wonder what would happen when the team returns in August and Nigerians see clearly that this is another ride, another jamboree, another wasteful adventure of a country expecting to reap fruits of metal when it had only planted seeds of wood!
President Buhari got it right when in his remarks to the delegates he did not raise expectations beyond the level of the Olympic Games’ mantra that participation is more important and more rewarding than winning. He urged the athletes to be good ambassadors by competing fairly and cleanly, and warned officials that those that do not have any official business with the team should not attempt to go to Rio. It is the clearest warning yet it will not be business as usual and that accounts will be rendered after Rio 2016!
The matter of the NFF and its ordained foreign coach was another matter. After abysmal past failures of foreign coaches, financial wastage by officials, and rejection of the notion that only a foreign coach can succeed in Nigeria, the idea of a foreign coach was revived and, with the active support of a select media, successfully sold again to Nigerians in a well-packaged arrangement to cover the eyes of Nigerians with wool and install a foreign coach.
This plot with a hidden agenda blew up in the faces of the NFF officials who designed it when French man, Le Guen, for one reason or the other, decided to abandon the scripted plot by inserting a condition into the NFF’s offer that would never be accepted by any Nigerian – to manage the Nigerian Super Eagles from his home in France. It was such an insult that the NFF rushed to distance themselves from the man, and were left holding onto the straw of a plot that went awry.
I am just now thinking through the whole shenanigans of a process that was deliberately skewed to achieve a pre-determined result. Why did the NFF make Nigerians go through a wasteful and distractive process of ‘faking’ a short-listing process, organizing an interview session of the selected coaches by Skype, and announcing their final choice only for the man to turn around and reject the offer less than 24 hours after?
It is preposterous, mischievous and very suspicious. The NFF are now forced to quickly revert back to their initial vomit. They have offered the only Nigerian they also ‘screened’ and offered the politically toothless and cosmetic position of Chief Coach before Le Guen threw his bombshell. He is now to handle the team in an interim position until a new foreign coach is found!
Oh, how I wish the deal came through. How I wanted to see how the NFF would have managed to raise funds to pay the foreign coach when they could not pay local coaches well and on time, and how they would have handled the failure of the Eagles to qualify for the 2018 with another foreign journey-man coach in charge.
With all due respect to him, and at the cost of courting his enmity for speaking my mind (but the truth has to be told nevertheless), the man now saddled with the responsibility to handle the national team, does not deserve it. Compared to other coaches available in the country, he has not earned it, and obviously does not have the stature, the records, the knowledge, the exposure and the credentials to manage a big team like the Super Eagles.
When Nigeria fails to qualify for the 2018 World Cup as a result of this mediocre handling of a serious matter of manager of the Super Eagles, probably the government would see the need to take a closer look at the whole issue of football and rescue it from the grip of well-intentioned but undeserving persons that have held the jugular of sports for several years since one Amos Adamu changed its face by mortgaging its future to the lure of lucre!
That’s why I was missing last weekend. Forgive me.

FIFA President, Infantino To Visit Buhari On Monday

Gianni Infantino and Ms Fatma Samba Samoura, the President and Secretary General of the world football governing body, FIFA, are expected in Nigeria this weekend and will be received at the Abuja Airport by NFF president, Amaju Pinnick and members of the NFF board and management.

A welcome cocktail will be organized for Infantino at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel later in the day.

On Monday, he and Ms Samoura, will pay a courtesy call on President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa. Some FA presidents from other African countries, are also scheduled to be present.

Infantino will fly back to Switzerland on Monday night, while the Secretary General will leave Nigeria on Tuesday.

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NIGERIA FOOTBALL: Your team is 70th in the world – Le Guen blasts NFF

Paul Le Guen who refused to accept targets set for him by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), have blasted NFF, declaring that “your team are not doing well, they are 70th in the world”.

A top official said: “He said he will only take the job and see how things play and so there was no basis to set a target for him as the Super Eagles are not doing well and hence their ranking as 70th team in the world by FIFA.”

The official revealed that Le Guen also insisted on shuttling between France and Nigeria.

“He wanted to fly in and out for Nigeria’s games and not live in the country, similar to what Berti Vogts did when he was in charge of the Eagles in 2008,” the official further disclosed.