To sack Jose Paseiro, or not

A friend, a foremost sports journalist, called me up last week from Abuja to inform me that he was racing to the office of the Minister of Sports to inform him of his decision to lead a national campaign to sack Jose Paseiro, the Portuguese coach of the Super Eagles. He wanted my urgent opinion.

Of course, I do not take decisions in a hurry or in a panic mode. I also do not swim with the tide of opinion based on emotional or sentimental outbursts, or be part of a mob action baying for the blood of a foreign or local coach, when everything around is skewed against any form of success.

I politely told him I had no opinion yet on the matter and would make it public when I do. That’s what I am doing now.

I have traversed a similar path in the past, and got burnt by the power of narrower interests and personalities that have run and ruined Nigerian football for many years.

The core of the matter is that the Super Eagles are not winning their matches. Even easy ones. As far the people are concerned, these last two drawn matches are ‘failures’ and someone must pay for them.

That person is Jose Paseiro.

I won’t completely fall for such sentiments now.

The Super Eagles should win AFCON 2024.

They should also qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Let’s look at some of the issues that can truncate these goals.

Domestic Nigerian football.

There is no depth to the country’s domestic football. They were neglected for too long by successive football federation boards. The boards concentrated on the more personally ‘lucrative’ Super Eagles.

They feasted on the fruits without properly feeding the roots. The tree eventually and inevitably weakened and withered, having being deprived of nutrients essential for development of players for a career in the