Amasiemaka carpets NFF over Keshi

Former Nigeria captain, Adokiye Amasiemaka, has blasted the Nigeria Football Federation for wanting to hire a foreign coach to replace the embattled out-of-contract Stephen Keshi.

Amasiemaka, a member of Nigeria’s victorious 1980 Green Eagles team that won the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in their history believes Keshi has not been shown enough respect.

Speaking in an interview with SL10.ng, ‘Chief Justice’ as he’s also known, questioned the credibility of the NFF leadership and called for foreign administrators to run the affairs of the NFF if they are so interested in hiring foreign coaches for the national team.

“What makes these chaps who call themselves football administrators more credible to run our football than our indigenous coaches are to manage our football teams?” he queried.

“Why do they keep on talking about foreign coaches? Why don’t they ever talk of foreign administrators?” he asked rhetorically.

“Gentlemen, don’t you think it is high time we had foreign administrators to occupy the glass that is now the burnt house that is now the burnt house?  “Stephen Keshi has done marvelously. We should actually give Stephen Keshi, Daniel Amokachi and Sylvanus Okpala and the rest of the crew much more credit than is given to them.”

Adokiye also said that enough appreciation has not been shown to the coaches for winning the Africa Cup of Nations and also qualifying Nigeria for the World Cup.

“Don’t forget that for so long we were in the doldrums in terms of results. These chaps came and at the first attempt, won us the Nations cup and at the first attempt, qualified us for the World Cup.

“We’re not even saying thank you to them, everybody is just saying ‘fire them fire them’, and we know the running battles Stephen Keshi has had with these so-called football governing body in this country. We know and it’s like we’re not aware of it,” Adokiye added.