Sports
Is Keshi Losing His Dressing Room?
In his final days as Super
Eagles coach, Samson Siasia lost his dressing room. The same is now happening to Stephen Keshi.
Emmanuel Emenike took to the media to reveal his disappointment with comments attributed to Keshi about the Fenerbache striker.
Keshi was quoted as saying that Emenike was the problem of the Super Eagles and some players were unhappy with him as his goals have dried up since October 2013.
Emenike has since gone public with his own side of the story, even daring Keshi to drop him to further raise concerns over the man-management skills of the coach.
Siasia had his run-ins with Vincent Enyeama and Osaze Odemwingie, while Keshi clearly failed to manage the situations with Ikechukwu Uche, Osaze and Joseph Yobo.
Coaching has gone beyond picking the team and dishing out instructions to players as a coach who wishes to succeed must also possess good skills to manage the big egos of these players.
It would be recalled that Keshi also had a much-publicised spat with Seyi Adebayor when he was in charge of Togo.
But for the pressure mounted on him, he would not have taken the outspoken Osaze to the World Cup. Osaze’s sin was that he spoke out against how the coach showed him total disregard even when he had decided to drop him from the 2013 Africa Cup on Nations in South Africa.
Osaze eventually made it to the World Cup and was the match winner against Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was a result that propelled Nigeria to only their second qualification to the knockout stage of the World Cup.
Keshi has badly managed the case of Ikechukwu Uche, who the records clearly show is one of the most prolific strikers in a green-white-green shirt and has also proved himself in the Spanish La Liga, where last season he scored 14 goals.
Keshi did not take Uche to Brazil 2014 because Keshi alleged that the Villarreal striker is “tactically indisciplined” when he plays for Nigeria.
And recently, the coach claimed the striker has said he will only play again for Nigeria if only he was begged to do so. It was a claim Uche quickly denied.
Uche may have suffered a slump in form as Nigeria won a third AFCON title last year, but he is a different type of striker to Emenike, who is a power-playing forward who is predictable and so easily marked out, and Uche would have been a worthy option upfront for Nigeria at the World Cup for his intelligence and guile.
Nigerian sports minister Tammy Danagogo and some “very powerful friends” of Keshi are insisting on a new contract for the coach.
But as it now stands, it will be the players, recent results and the newly elected Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) executive committee who will soon decide the fate of ‘Big Boss’.
Hon Dike who spoke with sports journalists shortly after the flag off the 2024 edition of Chairman’s Football Unity Tournament at Botem Tai in Tai LGA, said the tournament is an annual event to promote peace and unity in Tai as well identify budding talents in the area for global competition.
The opening ceremony of the tournament was more like a carnival was witnessed by huge crowd including prominent indigenes of Ogoni Kingdom, sports lovers and people from all works of life.
The LGA boss revealed that special sports committee will be setup in the area to work out modalities to strengthen sports development in Tai.
He advised the participants in the tournament from various wards in the LGA to play the game by the rules and conduct themselves in a peaceful and orderly manner and use the opportunity to showcase their talents.
Hon Dike further disclosed that his administration will also give priority attention to skills development among the youth to enhance their human capacity and promote enterprise development in the area.
Earlier in his address the Chairman of Tai LGA Football Council, Elder Wisdom Gorgor said the annual football competition has been a unifying factor in Tai LGA that need to be sustained to forge more unity and development in the area.
He urged the participants to see the competition as an opportunity to embrace football as a full career and earn sustainable livelihood.
Elder Gorgor who commended the Chairman of Tai LGA, Hon Dike for his visionary leadership and tremendous development achievements recorded in the LGA under his administration, appealled to the Chairman to build a Mini Sports Stadium in the area to promote sporting activities.
The training was held at the Sani Abacha Stadium Indoor Basketball Court in Kano last Saturday.
According to the Vice President and Head of NBA Nigeria, Gbemisola Abudu, the event was part of the league’s commitment to growing broader basketball ecosystem in Nigeria and making the game more accessible across the country.
“Our first Jr. NBA clinic in Kano speaks to our commitment to growing the game in Nigeria and creating more opportunities for boys and girls to learn and play the game,” Abudu said.
“Nigeria has a rich basketball history and abundance of talent, which is evident every time you watch an NBA game. We look forward to continuing to engage with basketball stakeholders, business leaders and members of the community to further the game’s reach and impact on young people around the country,” she added.
The 2024 basketball initiative clinics of NBA Nigeria also included the league’s inaugural Jr. NBA elite camp for 150 boys and age-16 girls held at the American International School in Lagos in July.
Others include the NBA’s building of 1,000 courts in Africa over the next decade, Nigeria’s Festival Coins and Salubata named the top two winning businesses at NBA Africa Triple-Double Accelerator’s inaugural Demo Day in New York City held last September, and the third edition of “NBA Meets Art,” a curated installation celebrating basketball through the lens of Nigerian art and culture as part of West Africa’s premier art fair Art X Lagos, held in November.
Central to this vision is the federation’s investment in capacity building, evident in the just-concluded one-week Level 1 Badminton World Federation (BWF) Coaching Course, which marked a significant milestone for Nigerian badminton.
Held in Abuja, the course brought together 13 young coaches from across Nigeria. The last time such a course was held in the country was in 2017, making this a historic and transformative step.
The training was facilitated by the Badminton Confederation of Africa (BCA) in partnership with the Badminton Federation of Nigeria (BFN) and conducted by Dr. Ahmed Radah, the BCA Development Manager.
Radah, impressed by the talent he witnessed, praised Nigeria’s potential.
“Nigeria is blessed with immense talent and a strong badminton tradition. I believe this country has what it takes to dominate on the global stage,” he remarked.