A former technical committee member of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Barrister Austel Elumelu has called for proper supervision of Super Eagles’ coach, Eric Sekou Chelle by egg heads of the soccer governing body, but stressed that they must not dictate instructions to him, Sports247 reports.
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Elumelu gave this piece of advice while adding his voice to the raging debate about the manner in which Chelle commenced duties with his release of a loaded and controversial list of 39 players.
However, rather than take a swipe at the coach, Elumelu opined that Chelle should be left to prosecute his job in the way he deems best, which would help Nigeria avoid giving him room to blame interference for any failure that might occur along the way.
Elumelu declared, “You have given somebody a job. How he does the job is totally his exclusive preserve. So, we don’t have to start troubling the coach. For now, he has to do his job the way he wants it.
“He has been employed in a delicate situation, and he must be allowed to do it his own way, so that he would not be able to say in future that it was due to interference from A or B that made him not to succeed.”
However, along the line, Elumelu agreed that Chelle should not be left alone to carry out the task of reviving the Super Eagles’ 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification quest, but the outspoken lawyer posited that the NFF’s technical committee should only supervise and support the gaffer, without putting undue pressure on him.
He used Chelle’s controversial list as a situation in which supervision by the NFF would have saved the day, and he reiterated, “I believe announcing a list of 39 players was a technical risk. What he should have done would have been to stick with the former players and watch the areas of weakness, then make necessary adjustments with the areas of strength.
“That is why we have the technical committee. If we had a very functional technical committee, all these things wouldn’t have been an issue. The technical committee is also meant to give proper guidelines with which the coach should operate.”
Austel Elumelu concluded by acknowledging the uphill task facing Chelle, who he noted is saddled with the onerous task of pulling Nigeria’s World Cup hope out of a very precarious situation, even as the team heads into the restart of the qualifiers away to Rwanda on March 21st and home with Zimbzbwe on the 25th of same month.
“Considering the situation in which we find ourselves, Nigerians will not forgive the NFF if we do not qualify for the World Cup. We have to juxtapose that with trying to avoid interfering with the coach’s duty,” Elumelu counselled.
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