THE 'Chief Justice' got it right! I listened to Chief Adokie Amiesimaka, ex-international football player and one of the most erudite and informed commentators on Nigerian football, on Ray Power FM the other day. He said that Samson Siasia has been made the scapegoat of the present crisis in Nigerian football; that coaching is not the problem with the national team and that even if Nigeria were to hire the combination of Mourinho and Ferguson to handle the team, they would fail with honours giving the circumstances currently around Nigerian football.He said that Nigerian football has stopped producing high quality football players as a result of a lack of developmental policies and strategies. He concluded that football in Nigeria has been on a steady decline since 1998, and that even if the right things were now done Nigeria would still have to wait till about 2022 to get back to the top of African football.I totally agree with Adokie. What are being done now by the illegal board of the NFF are cosmetic. They are treating the symptoms and leaving the disease!Take the issue of Samson Siasia for example. The man has been made the convenient scapegoat in this well orchestrated strategy to divert attention from the real source of the problems (the NFF) and hide under public sentiments.Samson and his female counterpart in the national female team, the Falcons, have become the sacrificial lambs on the altar of public sentiment.Samson made a few fundamental mistakes in the manner he dealt with disciplinary matters in the team, weakening it in the process. But until the team drew their last match against Guinea his defiant stance to do away with undisciplined players, many who now condemn him applauded him.The real problem with that team that failed to qualify for CAN 2012 is less about coaching and more about the quality of the players. A team and its coach are only as good as the players they have to parade in the team. They are the critical success factor in determining success in football.Would Barcelona FC be the same team without Lionel Messi, Iniesta and Xavi' Would real Madrid be the same without Christiano Ronaldo' Have the Super Eagles been the same without Okocha, Kanu and Amuneke'The players make the team. Samson just did not have the quality of players that would have provided the kind of results that he boasted about and that Nigerians expected before the Guinean match.The Super Eagles stopped playing great football many years ago. The team that qualified for the 2010 World Cup put up the worst display I have witnessed in over 40 years of my interaction with the game. The players were so ordinary they left no memories of their performances, and so inconsistent Nigerians unanimously called for the removal of Amodu even if he qualified the nation for the championship.We forget so soon how bad the situation was and how other factors assisted the qualification process.The problem with Samson is that he appeared to be 'arrogant' in his conduct, and unrealistic in his assessment of the players he had. The Super Eagles had long lost their physical and psychological edge and Samson was only slowly rebuilding the team, one block after another, in a process that would have still have led nowhere until and unless the domestic game is fixed and structures put in place to produce quality players from which a strong national team would be selected.On top of that, Samson over-rated the impact of coaching on a team even when it does not have great players. No matter how good a coach is he would need good players to demonstrate his coaching prowess. Amodu Shuaibu himself, at a point during his reign, described the players in his team as average and some people wanted to crucify him.With the quality of players available in 1980 and 1993, Samson would have walked over Guinea and made them look like school children. Not now!Samson Siasia has been sacked and Stephen Keshi hired by an NFF suffering from a terminal disease called 'illegitimacy'. That singular act is an announcement to all Nigerians that the problem with the national team is with the coaching. Losing to Guinea was so painful that no amount of theorising would temper the people's desire and call for some heads to roll. The most convenient was Samson's.But, as Adokie said, if the system remains the way it is, not even 10 Jose Mourinhos will succeed where Samson failed. So, the coming of Keshi is just another musical game of chairs. He is being set up to fail also. My friend and former classmate, Yakubu Ibn Mohammed, put it this way: 'One more nail in the coffin of Nigerian football. This is the only way I can describe Keshi's appointment by our disturbingly clueless NFF. Once again we have succumbed to the blackmailing antics of our former internationals of the Westerhof era, who think we owe them our lives. Me, I don tire o'.Yakubu may have been a little bit hard on the former internationals but he speaks for a lot of people.Lets look at the real issues. The domestic leagues that should produce national team players of quality are in complete shambles. ThePremier league of the 2010/2011 season has run for one year and is still has not ended. It must go down as the longest season in the history of the game in the world!The Premier League board was without a Chairman through most of the season as a result of internal crisis that still have not completely gone away. The league has lost its sponsorships through some immature handling of very sensitive situations.The NFF, like a cursed body, was constantly violating its own, as well as FIFA Statutes, by its unnecessary interference in the internal affairs of its member and has several court cases and unending controversies to show for it.Corruption charges plague the entire football structure and there is no end in sight of a resolution of the power struggle between contending forces. Even my election case of August 26, 2010 in FIFA remains unresolved and irresolvable, hanging dangerously over FIFA's neck like an Albatross. FIFA, for fear of the repercussions, has been unable to announce the result of their May 30, 2011 sitting over my petition of almost one year! But ijo wo ni maku o ni ku' Death is an inevitability!There are no grassroots football development plans, programmes or institutions. The adoption and proliferation of artificial turfs for domestic premier league matches is perhaps the greatest mistake the country has made in its development strategy for football.Artificial surfaces are a big mistake. They may look good for television but the damage to skills development and the spate of serious injuries make it detrimental to growth.Finally, Nigerian football is still in the grip of a deep-rooted syndicate. Now an illegal body is running football and government is not being authentic about it, romancing with a body that has physically abused and disregarded the rule of law, and spiritually offended the elements through its unjust practices.Peace and development cannot be built on such foundations. Nigeria must redeem itself by seeking forgiveness for embracing injustice, and do 'restitution' by making peace with all those the system has 'wronged' - appealing to the aggrieved and appeasing the elements! Until that time, I am afraid Nigerian football will continue to 'wobble and fumble'.' olusegunodegbami@hotmail.com
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