Don’t appoint foreign coach for Eagles, Oyewole begs Pinnick

A voice of dissent from Ibadan, Oyo State has been added on the planned appointment of a foreign coach for the Super Eagles following the team’s inability to qualify for a second consecutive Africa Nations Cup scheduled to hold in Gabon in 2017.

Former Chairman of the Shooting Stars Football Club of Ibadan, Elder Bode Oyewole joined those opposed to NFF president, Amaju Pinnick’s vow to engage a foreigner to handle the Eagles with a personal note of appeal to the NFF boss and his fellow Board members. Elder Oyewole, a renowned Match Commissioner in the Nigeria Professional Football League, in the note titled “A Personal Appeal To The NFF On  A New Coach”, reminded the country’s football administrators that “No foreigner can love us more than ourselves,” and asked, “Hasn’t the best European coaches failed, Jose Mourinho, Luis van Gaal, Raphael Benitez, among others?”

The Chairman, Spark Communications Limited, the new owner of Sketch Press Limited, advised the NFF that they should rather stick to a Nigerian coach who should be given the task of combing the local league for the talents that abound there. “Let us get a Nigerian coach, give him a mandate to concentrate on the local league as a platform to put together a new team (and) you will be amazed at the outcome,” Elder Oyewole stressed, however, cautioning Pinnick to “check the overbearing attitude of your technical committee members.”