Oliseh, Keshi tear NFF board apart

Fresh crisis is brewing in the Nigeria Football Federation as some board members feel alienated from the decision to replace sacked coach, Stephen Keshi, with Sunday Oliseh. New Telegraph exclusively scooped that some of the aggrieved members are not favourably disposed to NFF President Amaju Pinnick’s handling of the sacking of Keshi and are angered by the unilateral decision of a few members in the hiring process of Oliseh.

“Many of the board members are angry because all the decisions regarding the sacking of Stephen Keshi and the move to hire Sunday Oliseh were just the decisions of Amaju Pinnick, Chris Green, Seyi Akinwunmi and Shehu Dikko,” revealed a source in the NFF secretariat.

The source added: “Even Felix Anyansi is not being carried along properly as chairman of the Technical Committee but he is just playing along with them. The choice of Oliseh and a foreign technical assistant was not a collective decision.” Oliseh’s proposed foreign assistant is Belgian, Jean Francois Losciuto. Loscuito was Oliseh’s assistant during the Nigerian’s time as coach of RCS Verviers in Belgium, and he has had coaching stints in Togo, Rwanda and Burkina Faso. Meanwhile, New Telegraph learnt that there would be an emergency meeting of the NFF Technical Committee on Tuesday, July 14 in Abuja with the aim of having members endorse the Oliseh appointment.

“The Disciplinary Committee acted unilaterally and recommended the sacking of Keshi without the Technical Committee which was responsible for the hiring of the coach. Now the input of the Technical Committee members was never sought before embarking on the frivolous trip to London to discuss with Oliseh,” another source revealed. He added: “The members are angry with the decision to go to London to negotiate with a Nigerian coach who could have easily come home to share his vision with the Technical Committee. They also frowned at the plans to make Oliseh design a five-year plan for the NFF which is the responsibility of the newly appointed Technical Director, Amodu Shaibu.”