Former Nigeria international, Stephen Ayodele Makinwa, has urged Nigeria Football Federation, (NFF), to review the 2-year deal recently signed with the new Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr, saying that a short term contract will not develop the country’s football.
Makinwa, the former Lazio player, believes only a long term deal could transform the fortunes of Nigerian football, as many players would be discovered and nurture to stardom in that process.
Makinde said Nigeria should learn from the past when Dutchman Clemence Westerhorf came to Nigeria and spent five good years to develop the national team, adding that the future is more important than the present situation. “
Now that we have signed the German coach for just 2-year deal. The years are not enough for him to work. We are just thinking about the World Cup qualification and the tournament proper but not how to develop our football. After the World Cup, we would still go back to the drawing board and start from the scratch again,” he said.
Makinde said the new coach should be empowered to perform his job by using every available resources to get fresh legs and use them for the glory of the country.
“We have seen how Westerhorf raised the standard of our national team, assembled the best we could offer in the 90s, qualified Nigeria to the 1994 World Cup for the first time and set a good standard for the team.
We still need such development in this modern day football because we have the talent everywhere but we have not seen a good coach to utilise them well,”he said.
The new Super Eagles coach must have been reading the minds of Nigerians when he moved straight to Spain to monitor the selected local players currently on a tour of that country with the chief coach, Salisu Yusuf.
Meanwhile, Yusuf has said he would be delighted to work with the new coach, as he is expected to learn many things from him as the team Technical Adviser.
