‘Nigeria Needs Foreign Football Administrators’

Former Nigeria national team coach, Adegboye Onigbinde has said that the country’s football needs better administrators instead of an incessant change of coaches.

Onigbinde, the first local coach to lead the Super Eagles to the World Cup in 2002, claimed that the administrators of the country’s football were the men behind the recent decline in its fortunes, at a forum organised by the Football Coaches Association of African Nations (FCAAN) in Lagos on Monday.

“What we need most in Nigeria are foreign football administrators, not foreign football coaches,”  Onigbinde said.

“If we have knowledgeable and serious administrators, it’s their job to develop coaches. But the concentration is on competition, competition, and competition.

The people in the federation] have to update their knowledge. Where we concentrate mostly on competitions and neglect the most important aspect of coaching, we’ll continue to fail.”

Onigbinde also used the opportunity to debunk insinuations that he was at loggerheads with former Nigeria coach, Samson Siasia who also attended the event.

“I became angry when someone said that no Nigerian coach could handle the Nigerian team after the draw with Guinea that ensured the Super Eagles failed to qualify for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. I sprang up,” said Onigbinde who turned 74 on Monday.

Nigeria’s football has seen a decline in fortunes in recent times with its teams failing to qualify for any major competition in 2012. Terry Eguaoje, founder of FCAAN thinks that his organisation can help plug that gap.

Many of the country’s coaches are produced through the Nigeria Institute of Sports, a facility that has come under pressure due to failing infrastructure and poor funding.