The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) and Stephen Keshi, Super Eagles head coach, are playing ‘mind games’ with Super Eagles Brazil 2014 World Cup list.
The ongoing conflict between Keshi and the NFF is far from over, with the World Cup kick-off date fast approaching.
Again, the provisional Super Eagles list for the FIFA World Cup has ignited the already frosty relationship between the Glass House and the coach.
The Technical Committee of the Nigerian Football Federation and Keshi had once disagreed after Keshi refused to provide the requested provisional list of 35 players for the World Cup. The federation was hoping to announce this provisional list of 38 players for the World Cup early April.
Following a close-door meeting between NFF and Keshi on Tuesday as regards the provisional list of invited players for the Mundial, Keshi said he had summited a 35-man list to the NFF Technical Committee last week, but the NFF has refused to make the list open, saying that they wanted to study the list.
A source close to the Technical Committed disclosed that Keshi did not summit any list, but pleaded for time to make a last minute search for players.
The source also said that NFF was completely disappointed with Keshi having wasted their time, adding that the meeting could have been re-scheduled.
Another close source to Keshi said that the NFF is likely to alter the list and Keshi doesn’t want to release any list that would be tinkered with.
Although FIFA deadline for the submission of team list for every participating country is May 10, Keshi might release the list few days before the deadline to avoid any alteration.
But the NFF has insisted that they will not interfere with the team list, but are also saying that they want to study the list. Nobody really knows the actual figures for the list; 37 or 38 names?
The former captain to USA 94 World Cup insists that all is well between him and the NFF.
Keshi said “everything went smoothly” during Tuesday’s meeting with members of the technical committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
Keshi was expected to release a provisional 35-man list for the 2014 Fifa World Cup on Tuesday in Abuja after a meeting with NFF chiefs.
The list was however not released with the technical committee revealing exclusively to supersport.com that Keshi would be afforded more time before making the list public.
Fresh facts emerged that the refusal of the NFF’s technical sub-committee to approve his World Cup provisional list is the exclusion of the duo of Spanish La Liga forward, Ikechukwu Uche and Bundesliga attacker, Chinedu Obasi Ogbuke in the 38-man list he submitted.
Keshi says there was a consensus between both parties to keep the list on ice.
“Everything went well at the meeting today (Tuesday) and the list will be released soon. Nigerians should be patient.
“The technical crew of the Super Eagles and the NFF will continue to work as partners in progress to get the best for Nigeria at the World Cup,” Keshi said.
“There is every hope that the likes of Ike Uche and Chinedu Obasi will be invited to fight for shirts in the World Cup team based on their current forms at their clubs. As with Osaze, the committee believes that the two players should be invited to fight for a shirt in the team.
“While they congratulated him at the meeting for the reconciliation that led to the recall of Osaze, they asked and were not given acceptable reasons for the exclusion of Ike Uche and Obasi who are currently doing well in their clubs. They believed that he should extend such reconciliations to the two if he had some issues with them.
“These were some of the reasons they decided to postpone the release of the list so that he would have more time to monitor those injured listed in the team,” the source noted.
“I made it very clear after the meeting that the delay in the release of the list was to give room for more consultations. There was never a time the issue of inclusion of Uche and Obasi became source of disagreement. I want to appeal to the Nigerian media to support the team instead of concentrating on report about crisis. There was no deadlock as widely reported in the media,” Keshi added.
Meanwhile, NFF President Aminu Maigari, has confirmed that President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the sum N1.25bn for Super Eagles World Cup 2014 campaign in Brazil. The total sum needed is N2.08bn; NFF said it would source for the remaining N829.89m.
But the trade-off is that Keshi is expected to face a tough and gruelling time over his World Cup squad selection policy, with many members unconvinced about his reasons for excluding some players.
Nigerians have continued to express their displeasure over the frequent news of clashes and crisis between the NFF and Keshi.
Many soccer loving Nigerians have opined that by now the NFF should be working round the clock on how to ensure that the Super Eagles put up a brilliant performance by providing all the necessary logistic, technical, human support for Keshi to excel at the Mundial, rather than engaging the coach in unnecessary squabbles.
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