Amaju Pinnick, president of the Nigeria Football Federation, is young and ambitious like many people his age and wants to leave a good legacy after his four-year term of office.
At 44, he’s already been head of the Delta State Sports Council, a region known for its wealth of athletics talent which has consistently topped the medals table during the National Sports Festival.
His decision to regularly send athletes abroad on expensive training paid off with laurels. It accounts for the reason he has insisted on sending referees from the domestic league and backroom staff to England for knowledge acquisition.
Under his watch, Warri Wolves grew from a small town club to continental challengers and could win their first Nigeria Professional Football League title in less than five years.
However, he has also been embroiled in controversy, as the transfer saga of former Super Eagles midfielder Sunday Mba brought him under scrutiny two years ago.
While Pinnick has denied claims that he blocked Mba’s move to CA Bastia because of the financial gains he stood to make, he has never shied away from telling media that he’s a comfortable man who can afford to spend the summer in America with his family.
With funds from the oil-rich Delta state propelling him into the office of president of the NFF in September 2014 as well as its attendant crises, Pinnick has slowly tried to gain acceptance among the media and the public.
He has also sought to win back corporate Nigeria, the powerful consumer brands and communications giants that finance the national football teams.
After years of graft and lack of proper accountability, Pinnick has said one of his main tasks is to clean the Augean stables and ensure that the federation once again earns the support of its esteemed sponsors in order to depend less on funding from the federal government.
“We're trying to rebuild the future of Nigerian football. We inherited the good, bad and ugly at the NFF,” Pinnick said during Social Media Week in February.
A recent issue with the return of government funds for prosecution of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil led to the resignation of long-standing general secretary Musa Amadu, one of the most knowledgeable sports administrators in the Glass House.
While Pinnick insisted that things must be done rightly, the lack of information with regards to the resignation of Amadu has meant that conspiracy theorists have been able to alienate him further.
An avowed supporter of Arsenal and an admirer of Arsene Wenger, Pinnick interjected Yaya Toure’s speech by saying “wrong club” and a shake of the head at a press conference after the Manchester City midfielder won his fourth African Player of the Year title in Lagos in January.
Columnist Calvin Emeka Onwuka also criticized his decision of chasing Arsenal reserves like Chuba Akpom and Alex Iwobi instead of looking to call up Newcastle United first team player Sammy Ameobi during his trip to search out eligible English-born Nigerians.
Pinnick also said that Wenger would be part of a consortium of coaches that would train Nigerian backroom staff during a controversial capacity development visit to England.
While the Super Eagles reached the second round of the World Cup last year, it has been downhill afterwards with their failure to qualify for this year’s Africa Cup of Nations.
At no other time has it seemed that the future of the senior national team could be more tenuous than now as they have gone without a substantive coach since July 2014 - 10 months that have seen the ranking of the Super Eagles plummet while smaller nations like Cape Verde have risen above the three-time African champions.
Has Pinnick got his priorities right?
While the youth teams have excelled so far, with all qualifying for the various Fifa tournaments having had a structure in place before the handover of baton to Pinnick’s board, it is evident that his administration would be judged by its handling of the Super Eagles.
Most importantly, he needs to hire a coach.
Stephen Keshi has not been the best employee but his track record says that he has something going for him even though many people think he does not deserve a second stint in charge.
However, it is obvious from a 2014 interview with the Vanguard that Pinnick is not a big fan of his fellow Deltan’s tactics and his board asked him to leave during his pay-as-you-coach stint during the failed Afcon qualifiers but the trainer was foisted on the team by the Sports ministry.
What Pinnick does with Keshi’s contract will determine how serious he is about forging his own destiny and leaving a good legacy.
A second issue that he is saddled with is that of the contract for a sportswear partner for the national teams. Having lost the backing of German giants Adidas over non-compliance with agreed terms, the NFF is in search of a new partner that would take care of its apparel and other needs.
This should also bring in extra funds to the federation that could be used to pay the coach who is eventually hired.
How successful his philosophy to look for foreign-born Nigerians and the foreign training of staff will be part of the yardsticks employed to measure his success.
Yet, none seems more urgent than hiring a new coach who would have enough time to raise a good team that could successfully qualify for the next Afcon in a group that includes seven-time champions Egypt and supposed minnows Chad and Tanzania.
Like it or not, it is already in the records that Nigeria failed to qualify for Equatorial Guinea under his watch.
As recent events in Nigeria’s political space have shown, four years is not such a long time. How Pinnick handles the upcoming qualifiers and the coaching job may well determine his lasting legacy.
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