Amaju Pinnick's 4 Years As NFF President And His Score Card

Pinnick gave Eagles worst rating, World Cup outing By Admin With the end of the 2018 World Cup should the orders of the Supreme Court become effective. There is no middle course in obeying the nation’s highest court’s decision on the controversy. Fifa can take the best way to hell if they do not want us to obey our land’s laws. For the four years that Amaju Pinnick ‘stole’ the four years he used in the Glass House, he was busy throwing stones. Pebbles can approach him. How did he fared while in office? Gave us the worst ever Fifa ranking: Nigerian football in 1994 was ranked 5th in the World. Pinnick took the nation to its lowest slide, a catastrophic 70th position, in FIFA rankings, the worst placing ever by the country. The past board of the Nigeria Football Federation, led by its president, Amaju Pinnick, was ‘elected’ into office in September 2014. The Federal High Court ordered that the election should not take place. The court was spurned. The election was ordered to be “illegal, null, Void and of no consequence in law.” Ever since, the game has steadily declined in height, stature, depth and magnitude. Worst hit were the cadet and women football. After Patrick Ekeji recorded the first ignoble record of not qualifying for the African Nations Cup as coach, the record was broken under Amaju Pinnick. The latter was due to gross incompetence and display of inability to run football affairs by his board. When Pinnick was ‘elected’, Nigeria was ranked 37 in the world, just few months after a Round of 16 finish by the Super Eagles at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. He took us as low as 70th before the 2018 World Cup where he led the Super Eagles to a first round ouster, the worst we’ve ever had in the World Cup. Under Pinnick, the Super Eagles got the sobriquet of ‘super chicken,’ the team failed to qualify for two Africa Cup of Nations (2015 and 2017). NFF tango with Stephen Keshi: On assumption of office, the Pinnick led-board of the federation, rather than douse the power struggle between then coach, late Stephen Keshi and the federation, ignited it. Keshi had been locked in a battle with Pinnick’s predecessor, the Aminu Maigari led-board, leading to the coach’s resignation after winning the 2013 AFCON. The Presidency brought back Keshi to his post and it didn’t go down well with some members of the board, who were also in the previous board, and were bent on seeing Keshi dismissed. The crisis deepened, played a role in the Eagles’ inability to defend their 2013 AFCON title before Keshi was eventually sacked in July 2015. After the Super Eagles failed to qualify for a second consecutive AFCON in March, using three local coaches in the process, he told journalists in Lagos, “If there is a local coach I will bring back to the Eagles, it has to be Keshi.” Appointment of Sunday Oliseh: In a hasty move to replace Keshi, Pinnick brought in a less experienced and unpredictable Sunday Oliseh as new coach of the national team. Amidst criticisms, the Delta-born administrator insisted he was handing Nigeria ‘Africa’s Guardiola.’ “Let me tell you that we are just presenting to you the Pep Guardiola of Africa, we are very excited because we know as a federation, that Sunday Oliseh will deliver,” Pinnick stated during Oliseh’s unveiling in Abuja. Oliseh then embarked on a stormy seven-month coaching journey that saw him falling out with his key players, the media and the federation. Not too long, he (Oliseh) was engulfed in a tussle with the NFF over the selection of players and payment of salaries and allowances. And the board members were irked when he declared publicly that he was owed salaries by the federation. A disgraceful outing at the 2016 CHAN tournament, where the home-based Eagles were eliminated in the first round, saw Oliseh and his employers at daggers drawn. The former Nigerian captain honourably resigned in February — less than a month to the crucial 2017 AFCON qualifying double-header against Egypt — citing contract violations, lack of support, unpaid wages and benefits to his players, assistant coaches and himself, for his decision. Return of Samson Siasia: In the middle of the crisis, the federation brought on U-23 national team coach, Samson Siasia, to manage the Super Eagles for the encounters against the Egyptians, but it was too little too late. Egypt held the Eagles to a 1-1 draw in Kaduna, before beating the three-time African champions 1-0 in Alexandria to book a ticket to the AFCON championship. ‘Wash-and-wear’ Nike contract: The controversial contract between the NFF and kits manufacturing company, Nike, was marred by a shortage of kits, with some describing it as a ‘slave contract.’ Several underarm dealings were suspected. The manner of the signing leaves sour taste in the mouth. Since the deal was sealed by both parties, the national teams — male and female — have witnessed a shortage of training and match kits. Until when we qualified for the 2018 World Cup and they made Nigeria win the trophy for fashionista. Nike smiled home with bumper sales and nothing in known will come in for the federation. At the All Africa Games in Maputo, players of the U-23 team had just one jersey, which they had to wash themselves after each game to wear for the next game. “It’s embarrassing; we don’t have training kits up till now. We wash and wear. People see the finished product but they don’t see what we go through,” U-23 team coach Samson Siasia said. Even the triumphant 2015 U-17 world champions, the Golden Eaglets and the 2016 CHAN Eagles suffered the same humiliation. At the Africa U-23 Cup of Nations in Senegal, Nike omitted NFF’s official logo from the jerseys of the U-23 team. Fraud in the house of the NFF: NFF’s Director of Marketing, Idris Adama, reportedly expressed dissatisfaction with the contract signed, calling it a “slave deal.” He alleged that the $2.75m value placed on the three-and-a-half-year contract only covered cost of kits to be supplied to the federation within the time period. According to Adama, with no retainer fees attached to the contract, the various national teams will merely serve as an advertising channel for Nike products, in sharp contrast to the previous deal with Adidas, which saw the German company pay $750,000 retainer. Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung, hinted that he would investigate the contract between the NFF and Nike. Three years running, no report is out. May be by the time Christ is coming back such a report will come forth. The NFF it was learnt, would earn $3.75m during the three-and-a-half-year partnership and $500,000 in bonuses when the Super Eagles qualified for the 2018 World Cup among several other add-ons. The NFF receive $750,000 in the first year, which rose to $1m each succeeding year in the three-year-contract. From the previous contract with Adidas, the NFF got N150m per year. Perenially broke NFF under Pinnick: Despite the Nike deal, the NFF has claimed to be perennially broke since Pinnick assumed office two year ago. Yet, they have made in excess of N25billion in the four years. In fact, the federation owes virtually all the coaches that have worked under it wages and bonuses. Many of the coaches have died. Many are old and sick. Many have lost hope of getting their monies paid. Players’ allowances are equally not paid as at when due. A new policy had forced players to even play for free! The federation decided that developmental teams from U-20 downwards would no longer be entitled to match bonuses, while assistant coaches of the national teams are now engaged on part-time basis to ease the financial burden on the football governing body. Le Guen gaffe: Stakeholders in the football industry are astounded by how difficult the NFF had made the job of hiring a coach for the Super Eagles look after the controversy that trailed the federation’s bid to contract Frenchman Paul Le Guen. A statement on the NFF website and Twitter handle on Monday said the former Paris Saint-Germain manager had been appointed as Nigeria’s technical adviser alongside Salisu Yusuf, who would be the team’s chief coach. However, Le Guen rejected the appointment the following day, which drew widespread criticisms of the NFF. In a face-saving move, the federation stated that it only recommended Le Guen and never stated that it had hired the Frenchman. But the damage had been done and Nigeria stayed in search of a coach with just three months to their crucial World Cup qualifier against Zambia. Then, they got and sealed the deal with a Franco-German Gernot Rohr who took the team to the 2018 World Cup first round outing, the worst that the Eagles had had over a long time. Supreme Court decision: Keen followers are still watching with anxiety when the decision of the Supreme Court would be implemented. The court effectively sacked the Pinnick Board. To allow for the national team to concentrate for the World Cup made the Giwa folks tarry a little. Now that the nation is out, there would be agitation for that decision being implemented. In sum, Pinnick’s critics believe he has failed in many ways. His friends will ascribe so many other successes to him especially in securing the CAF seat which both Aminu Maigari and Ibrahim Galadima could not secure. They will point to his influence in FIFA. “Amaju’s scorecard is there for everyone to see. Under him we didn’t qualify for two AFCON events; it never happened before. We won the U-17 World Cup and we will continue to win it because we have our way of doing things but success at that level will never translate to the senior team if we don’t change,” the ex-Sunshine Stars goalkeepers’ trainer Segun Oguns had said three years ago. Former Eagles coach, Adegboye Onigbinde, insisted three years ago that the problem of Nigerian football lies with the administrators. We are sure he would still hold to that opinion. Events have justified his position on that assertion. “I have made several enemies because I insist that the major problem of our football is administration and not technical,” Onigbinde said.