Chief Onigbinde (r) with former Super Eagles coach, Samson Siasia
Super Eagles coach to the Korea/ Japan 2002 FIFA World Cup, Chief Adegboyega Onigbinde has expressed worry about the present state of Nigerian football. He called on football authorities to find a lasting solution to the unending drama in the Nigeria Football Federation.
He was also expectant that newly elected President Mohammadu Buhari will give the sports sector the desired attention that would see sports in the country soar in the next four years of his tenure.
The Super Eagles recently played two friendly matches, first against Uganda and against South Africa, what do you make of those games?
I don’t believe that any patriotic Nigerian, who is a football follower will be happy at those friendly match results. Some excuses have been given, but I don’t accept those excuses. This is because I am very much aware that Nigeria is capable of being at a much higher level in football than we are today.
And that makes it painful. And Uganda coming to beat us at our home ground, that will not definitely be acceptable to anybody and we went to South Africa and we know the history of our friendly and competitive matches between Nigeria and South Africa, so what is happening? I believe that the administrators will sit down and look critically at what has been happening with the view to finding solution to them.
Are you not worried that till date the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has not named any substantive coach for the Super Eagles?
When I say that the major problem with our football is administrative, people get angry, they think that I am running them down. You have a very strictly technical matter that we have not been able to appoint a coach. It is also purely administrative matter, an issue that could be resolved within a couple of weeks.
But I believe they must have their reasons for delaying it till this time, it’s about eight months now. I will still implore them to sit down and get things straight and again, I have a lot of respect for everybody on that board. I don’t bloody care much about how you get into a position, but I care much about what you do when you get there.
Just some days ago Nigerians elected a new president in the person of Gen Muhammadu Buhari, now as a sports man and football administrator, what should Nigerians expect from him or what are your expectations from him in terms of sports ?
Firstly, I will like to congratulate him (Gen Buhari) I believe he deserves his victory and I want to also congratulate Nigerians because this system looks like a step forward for our practice of democracy. So I congratulate all of us. Now coming to his focus on sports, I wouldn’t say football in particular, but sports in general, we have been having a major problem in this country with our sports. There is no discernable developmental programme for our sports and I hope he will be able to set a body that will look into that area, because without a programme, we cannot make it.
And coming down to football, I have been in Nigeria and in football for this long and I am not aware of any developmental programme for our football. I have written and spoken and some of the times you speak, you make enemies, so I will implore the president to look critically into that, get people who actually know about all these things, not only in football. Nigeria is only a country where a carpenter will be the chairman of the medical board. It is my hope that the president should look into that area especially in sports. When you have a pack of people who are only interested in what they are going to get from sports rather than what they will put into it. It’s a big problem.
In the past we have been unlucky to have people without sports background appointed as sports ministers. What is your advice to the incoming administration?
Even some of them who have the background, what is the depth of their background? This is exactly what I am saying. Sports is not something that should be politicized, that’s why our clubs are not stable, that is why they are not doing well because if you look at it critically, by FIFA regulation we don’t have even one football club in Nigeria.
FIFA regulation says in article 17 that any football club should be able to run its affairs without any interference from a third party and when a government starts funding a club, is that not a third party? And not only that, people complain that government is pressurizing them on how the money is spent, why will it not? Now let us get out of FIFA regulation and come to the basics.We all know what a club is.
When people of like minds come together to form a club to pursue their interest, who will appoint chairman for them, who appoints secretary for them. But a situation where the board of every club in Nigeria is appointed by the government, that doesn’t go well. That is not in conformity with FIFA regulation and because in most cases club chairmen are politicized as they are appointed by the government that funds them. Well, it’s not funny.
There is another section of the FIFA regulation that says that members of any football body must be democratically elected or appointed by a higher body and must have a registered office. Which club in Nigeria answers those name and that is where the problem starts from.
Summarily, what are your expectations for the incoming president?
Well I have my hope that he will do it well because, I am being sentimental and personal here, in 1998 when I took Nigeria to African Cup of Nations he sent a personal message to me which shows that he wanted something good for football. That again reminds me that when he gets in there he will do something good for sports development. Well sports development is not just for competitions and that’s. one major mistake we make in our sports especially football. We organize competition for the sake of competitions whereas competitions are supposed to be used to assess the level of development in sports.
Now we abandoned development and organizing competitions to assess sports. Competitions in football are like examinations in schools. Why does a teacher set up an examination. He wants to know the level of what the students have learnt in what he has taught them. That is the purpose of competition in sport. Even the competitions we re running and taking part in , we don’t even have a system that will allow us to assess how we are performing. There is a difference between performance and result. And I put it in this form, it’s not every time you worked hard that you achieve the desired result and vice versa, but there must be a system that will allow him to assess their level of assimilation. Well I wish Nigeria the best of luck!
SOUREC – Vanguardngr