Wednesday, November 2, 2011

NFF may announce Keshi as Siasia's replacement on Wednesday

The choice of Keshi as successor to Samson Siasia, who was sacked on Friday after the NFF board meeting, was agreed by the majority of the board even though some of the members argued that the former Togo coach was not technically better than Siasia.

A member of the NFF board, who pleaded anonymity, told The Guardian over the weekend in Abuja that majority of the members wanted the former Super Eagles assistant coach to step into he job, having come second during the interview that produced Siasia as the coach.

The board member also revealed that the decision to give Keshi the job was informed by the insistence of the federation that it did not want a vacuum in the Super Eagles technical crew since the team was expected to reconvene soon for the 2013 African Nations Cup qualifying series.

"The Federation is going to announce Keshi as Siasia's replacement as coach of the super Eagles on Wednesday, but his full status I am not in a position to say now because some board members are against giving him a full contract. There are strong indications that it would be on acting bases, because we are still weighing the options of hiring a foreign coach for the Eagles.

"His choice was based on the simple fact that he attended the interview with Siasia. We want to avoid the situation of inviting fresh applications from other coaches. We just want somebody to start working on acting basis until we finally resolve on the possibility of hiring a foreign coach. For now, we have settled for Keshi," the source noted.

Asked why the board decided to sack Siasia despite Nigerians' call that he be given a second chance, the board member noted that Siasia's greatest undoing was his arrogance to the technical committee members, as well as the clause on his contract.

"The reports and recommendations of the technical committee were very unfavourable. They said that Siasia was very arrogant to them; that he talks down on all of them, and was not ready to listen to suggestions.

"They gave an example of an incident when the technical committee wanted him to remove injured Chibuzor Okonkwo since he had not been playing for Heartland, but he refused. During the match against Guinea, it was obvious Siasia was biased and sentimental in his selections. He fielded his boys," he noted.

On the conditions that would have saved Siasia from sack, the board member said; "I can tell you the general feeling of most members was that if Siasia had resigned immediately after the match, he would have been retained, but his overconfidence was his greatest undoing."

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