I found it interesting that Shaibu Amodu's first pronouncement as national technical director (NTD) was to speak about the Super Eagles.
The comments on their own are of little value with respect to this piece. But it bears serious significance to my long held fears about a fundamental lack of understanding of the role of the NTD and its strategic importance to the reactivation of the Nigerian domestic game.
The job of the NTD is to develop and implement programs to enhance the domestic game, not to run around the national team and make excuses, however valid, for the national team coach...
Successive Nigerian coaches, from James Peters to Kashimawo Laloko and Adegboyega Onigbinde, have repeatedly used this position, not to advance the Nigerian game but to pursue the lure that is the national team. Indeed, the controversies surrounding the Super Eagles at the AFCON in Mali in 2000, were in part the result of Onigbinde's involvement with the team rather than his actual job!
The NTD job is in reality a very demanding and very important job and not every coach is equipped to do this. All of the people who have held this job in the past have been unable to resist the lure of the SE, sadly including Onigbinde who is probably the most informed of the lot about this role...as well as Laloko who should really know better. And sadly, it appears Amodu is about to join this crowd...
For the avoidance of doubt, the key issues for the NTD to focus on are legion and some of them are as follows:
- How to reactivate football clubs as the primary institutional structure for football in Nigeria;
- Reactivation of the NPL
- Youth football, including the role of and regulation of the nascent academies
- Development of coaches, club managers and referees; training and continuing professional development
- policies/regulations on infrastructures, especially playing pitches.
This is the one position that a case could've been made for an exprienced expartriate like a Gerard Houllier or Pep Segura to help elevate the position and bring serious attention and resources to it..
I hope I'm wrong but I doubt Amodu can do it...
What is worse is perhaps the decision to place the NTD in a supervisory position over the Super Eagles coach. I am yet to see any similar situation in world football where a senior national team coach is directly subject to supervision on technical matters, in the same manner as youth team coaches. It is in effect a decision that depends on the benevolence and discipline of Amodu to find the balance between supervision and interference.
Let there be no misunderstanding, the Super Eagles is the apex of the national game. It stands to reason therefore that the key technical and systemic issues that affect the team lie at the grassfoots of the game.
That is where Amodu's work lies
