Dalung urges NFF not to sack Sunday Oliseh
– The Minister for Youths and Sports calls for calm between the NFF and Coach Sunday Oliseh
– Urges Nigerians to be patient with the coach
– Dalung wants Amaju Pinnick and Sunday Oliseh to settle differences amicably
The Youth and Sports Minister, Barrister Solomon Dalung, has called for support for the ailing Super Eagles’ Coach Sunday Oliseh.
While answering questions on the feud between the coach and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) by members of the House Committee on Sports during a budget defense on Tuesday February 9, the minister stressed the need to support the coach ahead of other qualifying matches.
Solomon Dalung
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“We must appreciate the way Nigerians behave and their sentiments to sports especially football. Nigerians do not accept anything short of victory. The performance of the team that led to whatever we are hearing, from my own analysis, was due to overconfidence.
“In terms of preparations and planning, you could assess them based on their first outing. Of course, they had some welfare challenges which we inherited when we came on board.
“We took steps to secure approval for funds but the process of the release of funds could not beat the time of the outing. That also contributed to their early exit in Rwanda.”
Dalung also disclosed he had called Oliseh to hear his own side of the story but could not trace any bitterness in their conversation. Although the former Juventus player admitted that the contents of the publication on players’ welfare were true, the coach said it did not come from him.
The minister also sought the NFF President Amaju Pinnick to find out if Oliseh had been sacked based on what was being written in the papers.
He also explained that he earlier met with the NFF boss and called for peace in the federation.
“The idea of losing matches and sacking coaches is over. We cannot be winning matches all the time. We must build wider spaces in our minds for failure and success because that is the only way we can develop. The fact that he lost a game is not enough for us to begin to look at history.
“You don’t run a country like that! The man should be allowed and supported to come back and prepare the team for the qualifying matches ahead. If he had health challenges while working for us, we shouldn’t abandon him at this time,” Dalung emphasized.
Meanwhile, the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) has issued coach Sunday Oliseh a seven-day ultimatum to name the journalists who he alleged to have demanded money from him.
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In a two-part-video response, Oliseh called his critics ‘insane‘ and suggested that a group of people in the media asked him to pay a bribe so they would write favourable reviews about his tenure.
This did not go well with SWAN as the association in a statement signed by its national secretary Andrew Abba, said that that Oliseh must come up with the names of the sportswriters involved.
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