The controversy surrounding Stephen Keshi’s exit and re-engagement as chief coach of the senior national soccer team will linger until 2017. This is because shortly after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil last June, the Super Eagles coach announced to the whole world that he was done with the job. Many, at the time, said he was headed for South Africa, which had just sacked their coach, to pick up the Bafana Bafana job. But it was not to be. Next, Keshi was said to be negotiating with the Equatorial Guinean football association for a possible job offer. While the speculation was on, he was kept on ice by the management of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), which didn’t seem to be getting along well with him and was more interested in hiring a foreign coach for the country’s senior soccer squad.
Just when Nigerians had given up hope on a rapprochement between the former skipper and chief coach, President Goodluck Jonathan intervened and held off Shuaib Amodu, who had been contracted by the NFF as the ‘caretaker coach’. By the time Keshi returned, the Eagles had bungled four of its remaining matches against Congo and Sudan, failing, in the process, to pull through and missing out on AFCON 2015. The call for Keshi’s sack became strident, as the call for his recall also became a passion for some fans. The NFF eventually bowed to a presidential order to reappoint the sweat merchant, who had once captained the Eagles to a Nations Cup victory.
Amaju Pinnick and his NFF ‘ding-dong’ affair makes one wonder why the man that said the Eagles crashed out of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil because of Keshi’s lack of what it takes to push the team to the next level, suddenly found out that the same man is the best for the job. Again, we wonder why Keshi, who said that the NFF drafted a ‘slave contract’ for him, finally took the job. He had said he would not sign the document and when asked to apologise, he sent a spokesperson. Within two weeks, Keshi got himself a signed contract.
Now, the question on the lips of soccer fans is how does the NFF hope to get Keshi to learn new tricks like the foreign coaches it had intended to hire? While we do not see the prospect of Keshi changing to become a Jose Mourinho or a Roberto Mancini overnight, Nigerians will not take any exchange of arrogance between the soccer management body and the coach. This deal calls for mutual respect. Above all, we need results. Many football stakeholders still hold that the renewal of Stephen Keshi’s contract for another two years may not amount to much at the end of the day.
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