Poor coaching is not Nigeria's only problem - Sunday Oliseh

Former Super Eagles coach Sunday Oliseh says poor coaching is not the only problem blighting the Super Eagles and football in Nigeria. 

Oliseh said this in his latest article titled "Is this Super Eagles sole hope to bounce back?" in his football column "Life Is A Sport".

Speaking on the way forward after Super Eagles failed to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the former captain stated that the problem is beyond poor coaching and called on Nigeria to use Napoli star Victor Osimhen as a catalyst for change while fixing the local League (NPFL) with the introduction of new regulations and rules.

"I am totally amazed at the gigantic erroneous belief by some compatriots, that the disastrous problem of Nigeria in the past 6 years is limited to just poor coaching of the Super Eagles," Oliseh said.

"True, the coaching is an integral [and] crucial part of the crisis, but not totally the sole reason. This error can only be fuelled if you really falsely believe that the National team’s coach is solely responsible for creating talented great Eagles players."

"In fact, the National Coach in France, for clarity reasons on this, is called “le selectioneur” and not “l’entrainer” you got it… Selector and not Coach!"

On the possible solutions, the former Super Eagles coach says fixing the Nigeria Professional Football League, NPFL is the key to turning things around.

"Solutions?  Fix The Local League. How: for starters, introduce regulations and penalties that go as far as, but are not limited to criminal convictions etc…. for violations."

"The state of the Nigerian local league is arguably an extremely dire state, compared to other football leagues in Africa if not the world.

Sadly, even some internally “civil warring” world nations are even achieved better results than we are e.g., Libya."

"Its state is so sad, that some of our citizens, maybe understandably, ignore our local league’s existence to the benefit of the English premier league or Other worldwide football competitions.

This has consequently, crippled the means of livelihood of thousands of home-based Nigerian professional footballers and the related commercial football economy linked to It."

Oliseh also added that Napoli's superstar, Victor Osimhen, can be a catalyst in this change.

"Every great food or raw material exporting nation in the world has some basic peculiarities in common; Good and well-maintained farmlands, farmers, seeds, and good climate just to mention a few,'' he added.

"Similarly, in every football nation, the local league is the equivalent of the farmland above and football players are the seeds of this multi-billion dollars generating sports industry."

"Fortunately, we are blessed with, in my opinion, one of the best African players of the moment in Victor Osimhen. If employed correctly, I am totally convinced that this outstanding player is capable of being a catalyst in improving our football fortunes."