Huge joke! Onigbinde describes sports ministry’s latest plans to re-organise the NFA as laughable
By JOHN JOSHUA-AKANJI
Saturday, August 28, 2004

Former Super Eagles coach, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde, has kicked into touch the current plans by the Sports Ministry to re-organise the Nigeria Football Association, (NFA), insisting it’s an exercise in futility.

Onigbinde, a CAF and FIFA instructor of many years standing, says he doesn’t believe any tangible result would come out of the re-organisation exercise, which he sees as a ‘huge joke’.

"I don’t know what purpose this so-called re-organisation will serve," Onigbinde barred his mind in a recent chat with Saturday Sunsport. "Although I don’t know what the terms of references are, I am still prepared to hazard that the exercise will end in futility because of certain odds like the Decree 101 question which has so far defied solution.
"Not, until something is done about that decree, present efforts at re-organising Nigerian football would only seem like window dressing.

"For the decree itself to go, there’s due process to be followed, especially now we are in a democracy.
"In any case, what purpose has previous reforms of this nature served? Look, we should stop this rigmarole and do what’s actually needed to be done. Otherwise, I’d have no compunction to term the present efforts at re-organising the NFA a ridiculous, laughable pastime for the initiators," Onigbinde would further add.

The 3SC coach was also not amused by the hoopla that has trailed the country’s intention to hire a foreign coach for the Super Eagles, saying it’s a distraction that’s capable of derailing the country’s 2006 World Cup and Nations Cup programmes.

Onigbinde is particularly irked by the high-sounding and dubious portfolio of ‘technical adviser’, which the country’s soccer administrators like to call a white coach, says he.
"The NFA has no clear cut idea of what they want. When they say they want a ‘technical adviser’ to handle the country’s national team, what do they have in mind?
"Is it to teach the like of Austin Okocha, Joseph Yobo, John Utaka and the rest the rudiments of the game, or is it to develop a playing pattern or come and develop the country’s game over a period of time?

"Unless such objectives are clearly articulated, it’s funny to start using the world ‘technical adviser’.
"Do we need a foreign coach or manager for the Super Eagles? That’s what the NFA must first tell us.
"I was in Germany recently when a co-FIFA instructor kept taunting me about Nigeria’s endless search for a foreign coach. He expressed pity that a country with so much giving for them could be so naive to think its only outsiders who have the magic wand to emancipate them. ‘Only Nigerians can destroy themselves’ he told me.

"What I see in this whole matter is that there are some people who are just out to make money from this search-for-foreign-coach venture. Because, how much would they pay me, for instance, that would be enough to settle all other middlemen that made me get the job?" Onigbinde posed.