Super Eagles coach Sunday Oliseh spoke to journalists in Lagos on Monday, on why he took the Eagles job and his plans for the national team. PIUS AYINOR was there
Why did you accept to coach the Super Eagles?
The first thing to ask is, personally what is it for me to coach Nigeria? There must be something in it definitely. There’s something my wife said and I will share that with you here. She said, ‘we go around the world and people just run around us.’ But of course we had always sneaked in and out with the children. This is the only place where you’re always smiling, where you are always happy.
The point is that where we are sitting now is where I played my first major game in the Nigerian league (Onikan Stadium, Lagos). I remember how we used to avoid entering through a certain end so that those (Stationery) Stores supporters will not pour excreta on us. Stores fans, please don’t take it personal (laughs).
The point I am trying to stress is that this place is my country. I have lived here, played here and I schooled at Methodist Boys High School. What you’re saying is like asking me why do I want to work in my own garden? Why do I want to clean my own house? It’s just who I am. I hold a Belgian passport but there’s no where they put Belgium after Oliseh. No matter where they put Oliseh, it is Nigeria that follows the name. Oliseh is Nigerian.
We’ve seen situations where previous Nigerian coaches of the Eagles engaged in selling players invited to national camps. Will you do same?
I don’t need to sell players. For me, selling players is like trying to get business out of nothing. And I will share something with you. If a manger sells a player for one million euros or dollars, he gets seven per cent or maybe 10 per cent, if he negotiates well. And 10 per cent means 100, 000. And so his manager gets perhaps 100, 000 or 70, 000 and then I can only get maybe 10 per cent from the manager, who owns the player.
And so it means that I will be selling the chance to make my country do well for just about 7, 000. Whereas if Nigeria does well and I tell Oga Seyi (Akinwunmi, NFF vice president), ‘please let’s see the Lagos State governor.’ I know that I won’t get just 7, 000 there. I have to be blunt on this. Get me clear – I need money but not like that. It’s penny wise pounds foolish. I learnt something as a player going round the world and it is this: no matter what our coaches do, no matter what our mangers do, the players always share it amongst ourselves.
Of course I need money; I have a family to feed but this is not the clever way to go about it. I have brothers and sisters, cousins and friends that I have been caring for, for decades. Without God’s blessing, I can’t carry them along. So don’t get me wrong, I don’t suggest that I don’t need money but selling players is just a useless venture. Home-based or foreign-based, we are all Nigerians.
The persistence of this home-based, foreign-based thing is because there’s a myth that you can easily sell a home-based player because he’s not branded yet. Let me be frank with you, if our league is not doing well, we can’t sell them. If our national team is not doing well, these players (home-based) can’t sell well in the market.
Our league has to do well to raise their values. Remember we were doing well in the 1990s and that was why people were coming here to look for players. I went to Europe from Julius Berger, and there were others who benefitted from it like (Emmanuel) Amuneke and Taribo (West). Uche Okechukwu left from Iwuanyanwu Nationale because of the quality that was presented to the buyers. So the question of selling players won’t arise.
Will you work with agents and scouts? For instance your brother, Churchill is an agent…
My brother is not an agent; my brother owns a football club and he has had it for almost two decades. He’s a lawyer too and so he knows the implication of these things. But at the same time, he is my lawyer and so handles my legal documents. In the first place I want to succeed. If I play somebody I know is not the best for a position in place of the right person, I won’t succeed. I want to win always.
If you don’t qualify Nigeria for a major competition, will you resign?
I am starting from the scratch. For the past one month, I have been combing the entire globe – from Liverpool to London; I’ve been to Poland; I’ve been to Belgium and other countries in search of players. In the past one year, we have used 62 players for the Eagles. I guess we can’t call that a definite team. I am starting from the scratch; I don’t have a base to build on. And so I can’t promise that I will resign.
What I can tell you is that I want to succeed with this team and I promise to keep to that.
So much has been said about your relationship with Austin Jay Jay Okocha – that you hate each other, and you are enemies…
Yes, I hate Jay Jay because the last time we played tennis at Sheraton, he defeated me. He has beaten me like twice this year and so how can I be friends with such a person? He avoids football and then takes me to tennis where he has an edge.
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