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Football Enthusiast, ALLEN ONYEMA
Allen Onyema is the MD/CEO of Airpeace Airline. He is a football enthusiast and supporter. He is not happy that the NFL is looking for a foreign coach, when they can get a Coach locally.
A few days ago, he made his views known. These are his views: Let me lend my voice, to the issue of the debate over the Super Eagles Coach.”
We are suffering from colonial mentality in this country. We don’t appreciate our own. We don’t appreciate ourselves. With people like you (Segun Odegbami) and array of other sport superstars, soccer stars produced in this country, I don’t see the reason why we cannot have a look into the country and get somebody out there that will take on the Super Eagles. As far as I am concerned, Eguavoen succeeded to some level.
A lot of them succeeded. The truth is that when a foreign coach bows out from the group stage, nobody talks, when a Nigerian coach bows out from Quarter finals or semi finals, oh if it had been a foreign coach, we would have won the cup. Nobody gives Nigerian coaches a chance. Nigerians should rise up against any NFL, that goes again to get any idiot as a foreign coach. We don’t need a foreign coach, let us grow our own, let us even save the naira. Let us grow our own and give the Nigerian coach the same incentive,you’re giving the foreign coach and see them excel. I do it in my place of work. You employ foreigners. You put them in a hotel. They work for only 8 months, every two months they go for one month off and you pay for those one month that they go off and so you pay the salaries, you pay for tickets to take them home, every time you are going, and again, you put them in a hotel. We give them all this treatment, they serve you for only 8 out of 12 months a year, your own Nigerian pilots and Nigerian workers, serve you for 11 months and go on 1 month leave and I said no, I have to do something about it. And when they charge you in dollars, by the time you multiply by the great exchange rate, you will see that a coach pilot will be earning more than a Nigerian Captain, and I said no way, I woke up and said let’s do something about it and put something huge on the Nigeria salaries because as far as I’m concerned they are the best in the world.
So you have to respect your own, if you don’t respect yours,nobody will respect you. I’m very very happy when I see, I think it was … some of these Francophone African countries bringing out their home grown soccer stars and soccer coaches, and they did very well. Let us stop this belief that if it is not foreign, it is not good. Let us support our own and not when they appoint a Nigerian as your coach you start paying him a cleaners wages. In fact, no cars, nothing, no incentives that will motivate him. Sometimes you demean them by the kind of salaries you pay them even the players also find it hard to respect them. You make them look so miserable at end of the day no incentive to make them even a perform, you even starve them of the materials they need. They beg for the materials they need to deliver, so in fact,we should go to court to stop NFF from employing foreign coaches, I will join you, I am telling you.
And I will fund it,we should go to court. We must begin to love this country, that’s all I have to say about this NFF now.
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