The Nigerian Sports and Youth
Minister, Barrister Solomon Dalung who intervened and stopped the NFF
from sacking embattled coach Sunday
Oliseh after his ‘insane’ video rant has blasted the NFF for their
incessant sacking of coaches in the past and has warned the football
body that such practices won’t be tolerated in the future.
In
the long media briefing the minister also made a ‘wild’ assertion that
Oliseh’s YouTube rant was manipulated as the video was ‘fluctuating’
when he was watching the video. Lol!
According to Goal.com
“The decision to fix matches is the direct responsibility of the NFF not on the rectangular size of my table,” Dalung said in a Tuesday media briefing in his Abuja office..
“I
can tell you that they have already had problems with the Kaduna venue
because the coach wants Port Harcourt, while the federation was
insisting on Kaduna.
“When
I waded into it appealing to them, the coach told me that the team is
playing against many negative things but when I asked the leadership of
the federation, they started the whole story about the crisis with the
coach.
“But
I told them they were drifting too far into the issue of sacking the
coach since I was not interested in listening to their stories.
“We
should be able to build a country where we should celebrate somebody
that did well and sympathize with him if he fails, encouraging him to do
better. I told the federation that overconfidence ruined the team.
“I
told the federation that they don’t need to sack the coach because he
lost a game. They brought the issue of YouTube complaining that the man
embarrassed Nigerians and must apologise.
“But
I told them that they should not judge him based on the YouTube because
technology is now so sophisticated that a man can be manipulated having
an affair with a woman when it is not true.
“Yes,
I agree that I am a novice as they claimed but I looked at that video
and the way it was fluctuating convinced that there was an act of
manipulation. This is my own judgment and I am free to hold this
opinion.
“I
told them if they have not heard from Oliseh directly concerning those
things on YouTube, they have to hold on until I speak to Oliseh. When I
spoke to him, he did not indicate any bitterness throughout the 16
minutes the discussion lasted. He rather pointed at issues we have to
address
“I
know very well the circumstances with which he trained the players and
even NFF know. I told the federation that based on the discussion, we
have to look at how we can make progress out of it instead of sacking
Oliseh now and bringing another person we will sack again when he loses
against Egypt.
“After
sacking another, we will then look at how we can sack the NFF because
if we sack the coaches, we will face the people that employed them since
they have also failed too. It is going to be a sack game which is what
we should avoid. I told them it is natural to discipline coaches but not
to sack them.”
“If
I will still be here when the elections into the board of the
federations will be done, I am assuring Nigerians that nobody will pick
his in-law or farmers’ association chairman as a member of a board.
“Those who are contesting must show their commitment, they must show how they will guide their federation to success.
“Most
of all the problems we are having in the federations are linked to
this. We have federations that are existing and cannot do anything
except the ministry gives them money.
“The
ministry even funds the ticket for a president [of a federation] to
come for meetings. At the end of the day, you will discover that the
federations have been reduced to a battle ground; nothing but fighting
over relevance and resources.
“A man who was a leader of a farming group in the village will now be appointed a board member in a football federation.
“Immediately
he arrives on the board, he considers himself as having been appointed
into a big political office where he must be paid allowances and he must
be given money, he has nothing to contribute but much is going to be
spent on him.
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