Less than 3 months
to 2014 FIFA World cup, when other participating countries are doting the ‘i’ and
crossing the 't' on how to successfully prosecute their games in Brazil, we are
reading on the pages of newspapers about the query Nigeria Football Federation (NFF)
handed to Super Eagles Head Coach, Stephen Keshi.
You may have
seen some of the headlines "Keshi Fall in NFF Hot Waters," "Keshi
to Face NFF Technical Committee Sack," "Keshi Bow his knees to beg NFF
Boss," "Keshi Raise Eyebrow over NFF Query." I hope the media isn't
trying to fuel the fire.
I guess query
is supposed to be an internal memo between an employer and employee as the case
may be. It shouldn't be an issue for public consumption. As the memo stated, NFF
needed Keshi to explain how things are unfolding on a number of issues - that's
all!
The media shouldn't
blow the matter out of proportion. Some of those insinuations that some officials
of NFF doesn't see eye to eye with Keshi, since he refused a foreign technical assistant;
and that may be reason Keshi boycotted the Tuesday March 25th meeting with NFF technical
committee, who may insist on imposing one of him.
This isn't the
case anyway. The query only requested that Keshi explain why he attended 'Tom tom'
event in Lagos without the express permission of NFF marketing department, who is
directly in charge of Official Sponsorship rights of brands partnering with Super
Eagles. This is a marketing issue which has a lot of implications on partnership
agreements with brands.
The query also
requested that Keshi explain why he couldn't attend the meeting with NFF technical
committee in Abuja. This is imperative as members of the technical committee deserve
the right to know what transpired.
Query is a tool
used to manage employees and I guess it was necessary for NFF to call Keshi to order
and get him to focus on the world cup task at hand, nothing more. Therefore, I'm
using this medium to ask the media to let this matter lie low for the interest of
Nigerians who are hoping to enjoy Super Eagles entertainment at world cup. Remember,
football is one sport the keeps our people together and happy. The media shouldn't
play the Devil to spoil our anticipated fun this June.
The matter
of provisional Team list disagreement between the technical committee and Keshi will also be resolved.
