AFCON 2013: Maigari, Green frustrates Super Eagles coaches

Keshi...facing extreme frustrations in his job

Nigerians should know quickly that the Super Eagles coaches have been operating under frustration over the years due to massive interference from the supervising Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). The frustration is at the hilt now.

Authoritative reports reaching us from the Eagles camp in Faro, Portugal has shown that the quality of interference in the jobs of the coaches is so tremendous that the chief coach of the national team, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, is described as working under the spell and acrid criticisms of erstwhile chairman of the Technical Committee of the NFF, Chris Green.

Ironically, Green had never played the game. His father was a reknown referee and his elder brother, Hamilton Green was a fantastic central defender who played up to the national team.

Before the last dissolution of the standing committees of the NFF, Keshi like the other coaches are made to bring their list of players to the committee where they are made to accommodate the interests of the chairman of the committee in terms of choice of players.

This was where some players surprisingly make the list of the coaches while some players are dropped. However, the coaches have had to go and defend such list in ‘team spirit’ taking all manners of insults from players young enough to be their children and from some media analysts.

A particular case in point is Danny Shittu. He like four other players on the AFCON 2013 list were Green’s candidates. Ironically, three of the players he imposed on the coaches have shunned the team with one reason or the other. Three other players the coaches listed were forced to be dropped.

Now, there were some fringe players in the national team who had not featured in the Keshi era but are being organized to be smuggled into the team.

Maigari: All of these atrocities are known to Aminu Maigari who by the power equations and distributions in the FA secretariat is ‘weak’ and weakened.  Having dissolved the standing committees on the eve of the AFCON games, Chris Green ceased to be the chairman of the technical committee and should have lost the sheen and influence to be dictating technical ‘advises’ that is injuring the reality of the situation on the team’s bench.

He was present how the Eagles coaches suffered verbal diarrhoea for the draw friendly the team had with the Catalonians in Spain from Green.

According to our Faro sources, the genteel nature of Keshi had made Green the supervisor of all technical issues in camp. He ios acting like the headmaster of the camp. He interferes in the choice of players in matches. We are not just sure if he does not determine substitutions.

With the way things are, I do not see the team going too far in South Africa. The quality of interferences in the team’s technical matters, an area supposed to be exclusive to coaches, will have done colossal damages before they get to the championships.

Aminu Maigari and Christopher Green should be held responsible for the failure of the team. I swear it cannot be the inadequacies of the coaching crew who have been brow beaten by the power setting in the illegal NFF.

Watch out.