Hopes of the conflict between
Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi and his employers Nigeria Football Federation
(NFF) ending soon were dashed on Monday when the Federation through its Assistant
Director on Media, Ademola Olajire unleashed another war of words on the former
Mali coach.
A bitter Olajire, while fielding series
of questions for several minutes on a radio sports programme monitored by our
correspondent on Monday, once again slammed Keshi for the ‘disrespectful’
resignation of his appointment in far away South
Africa.
Olajire noted that it was
disrespectful to President Goodluck Jonathan, NFF president Aminu Maigari and
even a shame to the former Mali
tactician to resort to broadcasting his resignation of appointment on a live
show in a foreign land.
“It (Keshi’s resignation) was
very shocking. From my end and that of the NFF, I think it was disrespectful. It
was disrespectful to the President of NFF his employers, President of the Federation
that was waiting to honour the players and the coach. It was disrespectful that
he chose to do so on foreign soil when he could have sat down to settle
whatever the issues were if there was indeed any.
“The Sports Minister was there and
he could have approached him. He could also have gone to the NFF President too,
who is a complete gentleman. It was a meeting with the Minister that eventually
resolved the matter. He just succeeded in ridiculing himself. His actions were
very unnecessary, disrespectful and very overboard.”
Olajire also denied that the NFF board
members put undue pressure on Keshi in South
Africa or failed to pay him his salary. The
famous after-match meeting that annoyed Keshi in Nelspruit, he said was
actually nothing but a small gathering at which the coach was asked to explain
his plans for the team giving the tight angle it was in after facing Zambia.
“This meeting that was
misconstrued took place after the Zambia
match which ended 1-1 and that meant we had just 2 points from two matches and
it was not too glorious. And everybody was wondering whether we would leave the
competition in the group phase for the first since 1982 and only for the third
time ever.
“And we were not looking forward
to logging in that kind of terrible record. What we went for was to win the Nations
Cup and there were questions asked but it never amounted to a sack or the
hiring of a foreign technical handler. There was nothing like that. But we have
always talked about hiring a foreign technical advisor whose job it is to scout
and develop structures for the national teams, not just the Super Eagles,”
Olajire said. “The talk of NFF getting a technical adviser superior to Keshi is
balderdash.”
“We have paid Keshi up to the end
of January. We paid him even before the Nations Cup began. All the coaches got
their money. We do not owe any of the coaches. We paid all the coaches till the
end of January which is what any organization would have done. I think that was
all right. If we were looking to sack anybody, we would have been holding
something back but we did not. We were interested in sacking anybody but in
winning the Nations Cup.”
Olajire also denied that the NFF
bought the team’s flight tickets before the Cote
d’Ivoire match.
“We have no business with flight
tickets. If you talk of match tickets that we distribute to everybody, yes but
not match tickets. Flight tickets are for CAF, organizers of the competition. The
team secretary got a letter from CAF that we had two passages, we were either
going back home (which is reality) or we were going to the next venue. There
are no sentiments there. CAF only talks to you when you are into the knockout
stage and nothing less. That was the letter the team secretary got. It had
nothing to do with the NFF.”
