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Former Super Eagles
manager, Shuaibu Amodu, yesterday, urged the Nigeria Football
Federation to apologize to Nigerians for hiring his successor, Lars
Lagerback.

Lagerback took over
from Amodu months before the Mundial, and led Nigeria to a first round
crash, and has not returned to the country after the tournament.
Lagerback’s agent has said the Swede would not return to keep with his
job. Speaking at a forum organized by the House of Representatives
Sports committee to review the devastating outing and general fading
performance of the country’s football, Amodu said NFF members who took
the decision of bringing in the new coach, took a “hasty and
irresponsible” decision and deserve to say sorry to fans. “I expected
people who took that decision to apologize to Nigerians for taking that
unreasonable decision,” he said.

The former national
team coach said it was a “disgraceful performance” that the Super
Eagles failed to win a match in South Africa and also failed to justify
the $1.5 million paid to Lagerback for the period he worked. Toeing a
familiar argument of past Eagles handlers, Amodu said his frank
position on issues often pitched him against football authorities but
that he cared less about losing the job. “You can take my job away, but
you cannot take my knowledge,” he said.

Coaching not the problem

The former Eagles
coach said the cause of the rapidly declining status of Nigerian
football, was not by coaches, foreign or local coach but by the
administrative system within the country. “The problem with our
football is not with a foreign or indigenous coach, but our system and
mind set,” he said. He blamed the problems on the lack of continuity in
the appointment of sports ministers and other key officials, who do not
have enough time to articulate their programmes. He also called for
adequate planning and budgetary allocation to sports while saying that
local coaches should be adequately remunerated and given time to
achieve results.