Eagles ouster:Iloh, Okoku, Opara descend on NFA, Players

By   Philips Adefioye
Former Green Eagles players, Paul Okoku, Willy Opara  and former Chairman of Nigeria Cycling Federation Rev. Moses Iloh have described the Super Eagles exit from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa as a disgrace, stressing that this year’s performance was the country’s worst  in her World Cup history. (read Iloh on page 51).

DEVASTATED.. Super Eagle’s defender Daniel Shittu (L) and midfielder Kalu Uche mourning their ouster from the 2010 World Cup after drawing their last Group B match against South Korea 2-2 at the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban. Photo: AFP

Okoku in an exclusive telephone interview with Saturday Vanguard  Sports from his base in the US said that this year’s World Cup outing was disappointing, stressing that the time has come for a new team to be regrouped. “I am highly disappointed about this Super Eagles.

They are a bunch of disgrace, the team should  be totally overhauled and a new team put together. Now is the time, we should not wait to do the overhauling. We should get players from our local league and add them to some of the good players from the present squad.

“We should start with our indigenous coaches in the new team. We shouldn’t base it on man-know-man, the best hands should be appointed from our local league. I mean the local coaches who know what it takes to handle a national team like Super Eagles,” he said.

Okoku, a squad member to the 1984 Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire, under the tutelage of Chief Adegboye Onigbinde said that the way forward was for the present board of the Nigeria Football Association, NFA to bow out before they are disgraced out of office.

He advised NFA president, Alhaji Sani Lulu Abdullahi and his co-travellers on the Board should forget their ambition of coming back to the Glass House.

“The way forward is that the current NFA official should be flushed out because the failure that
has bedeviled the country’s football was the fault of the current NFA Board because of  their non challant attitude in the way and manner they administered the game in this country,” he said.

The one time defunct Leventis Football Club of Ibadan player stressed that Lars Lagerback should not be blamed for the Eagles woeful performance at the World Cup, adding that if the NFA had left Shaibu Amodu, the team would had done better.

“The huge amount the NFA used in employing Lars Lagerback was a waste. He couldn’t even a match. Lagerback’s appointment was  packaged and that is why we got this disgraceful result. It is shameful that it was Nigeria that Greece used in getting their historic victory at the World Cup. That is to tell you that the players who would have done the country proud were dropped, players like Victor Anichebe and others who are playing week in week out in their European clubs.

“The NFA must be probed and the money given to them by the Federal Government must be accounted for. They must also explain why they took the 36 States FA chairmen and their secretaries to South Africa for the World Cup,” he yelled on phone.

Calling President Goodluck Jonathan to set up a committee to probe the NFA and put in place a structure on how Nigeria football should be reformed, Okoku said, “We need the intervention of the President, we want total reform, we want sanity in our football. We also want ex players to take their place on the Board,”said Okoku.