15th February, 2013
It appears that the plan to get the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, to jettison the idea of hiring a foreign Technical Director, is falling on deaf ears, as the football body has reiterated its intention of going ahead with the proposed employment of a foreign expatriate.
Chairman of NFF’s Media and Publicity Committee, Emeka Inyama, stated that the body will go ahead with its plan as was announced last year by NFF’s General Secretary, Musa Amadu.
NFF last year reached an agreement with Belgian Tom Saintfiet, to act as the Technical Director for all the national teams, but the deal was scuttled by the Sports Minister, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi.
“There has not been any rebuttal since the General Secretary said so. We are going ahead with the plan,” Inyama told journalists.
“What we have always said is that there is a need for us to develop a structure and a template for football development in this country,” the NFF board member said.
“That is the beauty of a Technical Director. He doesn’t coach the teams but he will be able to say this is the mode of scouting, equipment and so on.”
“Every federation in the world has it; even at club level, they do it (employ technical director) and I don’t think there is anything wrong with it,’’ Inyama said.
He further dismissed suggestions that the technical director will be imposed on the coaches, adding that the NFF never wanted to fire Coach Stephen Keshi.