A former member of the Nigeria Football Federation Executive Committee, Barrister Chris Green has admonished the football federation to shun quota system in appointment of national team coaches
The advice from the former chairman of the NFF technical Committee is coming on the heels of speculations that two southerners, a former Super Eagles winger, Finidi George and Paul Aigbogun are highly favoured to pick the National U-17 and U-17 jobs respectively.
It is also an open secret that Abdul Maikaba who assisted Aigbogun in the last dispensation, Usman Abdallah and Henry Makinwa are the Nigeria Professional Football League coaches in the running for the Flying Eagles job.
As speculations that the duo of Finidi and Aigbogun are favourites for the jobs continue unabated, some football stakeholders are of the opinion that appointment of national team coaches shouldn’t be regionalised.
However, Green who made his views known via a popular WhatsApp Forum, FCT Football Update, said the NFF should give priority attention to merit rather than tribe, region or religion.
He said, “What is wrong with having two people from the same region heading our teams? Is there quota system in the employment of coaches?. I didn’t adopt that in my time. It was purely on merit.
“This thing reared its head when the Technical Committee which I headed at the time was to appoint coaches. We saw clearly very competent coaches against some that they wanted to force on us.
“We stood our grounds and maintained our list. What happened next was for all the sub committees to be dissolved. They then went to somebody’s house to make their list with their preferred candidates who were less competent than the ones we chose. The result is what we got. Let’s allow merit and eschew mediocrity.”
According to him, it does not matter even if all national team coaches are from one region of the country so long as the desired results are achieved at the end of the day.
“Football knows no ethnicity or tribalism. They should choose based on merit and competence irrespective of tribe, tongue and creed,” said the chairman of Rivers State Football Association.
The Coordinator of Real Madrid Football Academy port-Harcourt argued further that if appointment of national team coaches is tied to quota system, in future it would be an aberration to have more than one player from a region in the national teams.
