By Onochie Anibeze
The Nigeria football Federation has passed a message to Stephen Keshi, the Eagles manager.

“We are determined to qualify for the World Cup and the Nations and will do our best to support  you to achieve this and go to the competitions to do well.”

NFF was reacting to feelers from the camp that the Eagles crew was not happy over the number of players that should be invited to execute matches.

Keshi was said to have wanted 28 players and the NFF reminded him that only 23 players are allowed for a match by the football governing body, FIFA. Keshi had argued that since he had three matches to execute he should be allowed an increased number for wider options.

Musa Amadu, Secretary-General of the Fed

eration, we gathered, earlier advised that there was nothing wrong if Keshi invited 23 players for each match but warned that having 28 players for each match was wrong. But for peace to reign and for the technical crew not to have any excuse to fail Keshi and his crew have been allowed  27 players in camp.

Chairman of the Technical Committee of the federation, Barrister Green had this to say yesterday:

“On a personal note, I’ll do everything humanly possible to ensure Keshi and his crew succeed.  On the side of the federation, we are committed to developing football in Nigeria and qualifying for the Nations Cup and World Cup is a task that we will never compromise: We are, therefore, ready to make any sacrifice that will see us not only qualifying but doing well in those competitions.”

On Keshi’s relationship with the technical committee he said this: “We don’t have any problem with Keshi. We are working together and providing him with everything he needs to succeed. We have played six friendly matches in six months that he has been in charge. How many countries have played more? We have played a total of seven matches, six friendlies and one competitive match in Rwanda. We lost two, won two and drew three.

I feel that with these we should now begin to have some picture of a near consistent team that two or three additions or exclusions could be made from now till when we build a solid team.

We are in total support of the building programme but what we are simply saying is that for the qualifiers, we don’t want to gamble.

The President(Aminu Maigari) has made it clear that we must not gamble in the qualifiers. We need to field our best so that we will take three points and as many goals as possible for every match so that if goals will decide anything we will be there. Nobody in NFF has imposed or tried to impose any player on Keshi.

Nobody will do so in our tenure. We are committed to professionalism but we will ensure that the right thing is done.”