Let Gernot Rohr go, Odegbami tells NFF

Nigeria’s football legend, Chief Olusegun Odegbami, has urged Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, not to renew the contract of Super Eagles Technical Adviser, Gernot Rohr.

 

The former Green Eagles and Shooting Stars Football Club striker stated in his column that Nigerians should not see Rohr as the best option for the national team job, saying the country is blessed with qualified coaches to perform the magic.

“I shall disregard what the promoters of Gernot Rohr are saying that no Nigerian coach is qualified enough to handle the national football team of the country even after the German had failed in his years as the manager to deliver on the soft mandates given to him. To think this way is disrespectful and denigrating to all Black people.

To imagine that the German is now willing to accept new conditions deliberately designed for him to reject, means there is more to the whole matter than meets the eye, or he knows the value of the Super Eagles’ job more than his Nigerian bosses do. Is it because he loves the country more than Nigerians?

Who really loves the Nigerian? Covid-19 pandemic has become an eye-opener.

“I choose to be foolish on the matter of Gernot Rohr. Let him go ‘jeje’ with his ‘superior’ knowledge of football and serve elsewhere.

“We forget our history and the capacity of Nigerians to succeed.

“In 1968, for example, at the Mexico Olympic Games, a Nigerian, according to some people the best Nigerian player of all time, Teslim Thunder Balogun, coached the Green Eagles that played against the greatest football nation on earth at the time, Brazil, to a pulsating, well-earned 2-2 draw. That’s over half a Century ago! The surviving members of the 1973 All-Africa Games Green Eagles that won the Gold medal can testify that, the brain behind that victory was another great former ex-international player, Captain and then assistant coach of the team, Mr. Dan Anyiam, a very intelligent, eloquent, well-trained and educated coach. The exploits of Stephen Keshi of recent years as a coach are unmatched by any coach local or foreign in our entire history.

Are these not Nigerians?

“If we had continued in the trajectory of using the best trained Nigerians as our national coaches, inviting foreign coaches without pedigree to handle their national team in concession to their ‘superiority’ would not arise in 2020. Gernot Rohr has done his bit and collected his wages. Every month he was paid $50,000 Dollars? Who earns that kind of money for the amount of work he did in the years of his stay in Nigeria? It is ludicrous.

What did he really do? Did he win any international trophies for Nigeria? Did he impact the Nigerian league and domestic players in any way? Did he train any Nigerian coaches to be able to take over from him? The longest time he stayed with the national team for any stretch was a maximum of four weeks, twice in the 4 years of his expiring contract – before and during the World Cup in 2018, and before AFCON in 2019. Every other time all he did was assemble players from Europe two days to a match, selected his lineup for the match and returned to his paid ‘vacation’. Which Nigerian coach worth any salt cannot do what he did for Nigeria? Is that what anyone should earn $50,000 Dollars a month for?

Even the scouting for Nigerian-born players in Europe that constitute a large percentage of his team presently is done by a hardworking Nigerian man, Tunde Adelakun, we are told.

Now with Covid-19 and its economic consequences, no one should even be thinking of expending unavailable foreign exchange for a job Nigerians can handle and that does not require rocket science, period. To suggest a wage-cut is even annoying. Was the size of his wage the reason for his failure? We are entering a new phase in the ongoing War of global Civilizations. No African should promote color or racial superiority in African football. No Nigerian dares do so at this point.

read also:Odegbami: Nigeria May Never See Another Rashidi Yekini

So, I choose to be foolish. I shall thank Gernot Rohr for all the good services he has rendered and release him. I shall get one of our own qualified sons, and sink or swim with him into that emerging new world order beyond Covid-19.”