FG Dumps Keshi, Asks NFF to Decide His Fate

KESHI

The Federal Government may have dumped embattled out of contract Super Eagles Head Coach, Stephen Keshi, as it has distanced itself from his fate.

Indication towards this emerged on Wednesday when the National Sports Commission (NSC) did not only distanced itself from the controversy surrounding the coach's fate, but says it is the responsibility of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to hire and fire a coach.

The Commission, which has been at the forefront of his (Keshi) retention, since the coach's contract expired after Super Eagles crashed out of the World Cup ignominiously last July, asked the NFF to take any decision that it deems fit and assured the NFF of its support.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Commission's Director General, Gbenga Elegbeleye.

Elegbeleye in the statement said, "We are the supervisory body and we are not expected to do the job of the NFF. If the NFF wishes to retain or otherwise Stephen Keshi, it is their sole responsibility. We can't do their job. We will support and respect their decisions on the issue.

"Our responsibility is to ensure that all what the NFF needs to give us positive results as regards the national teams is giving to them. That is all."

Elegbeleye believes that Super Eagles had no reason failing to qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, on the premise that the country was not lacking in quality players.

"We are not short of quality and talented players. We shouldn't be missing out of this kind of competitions that we should even be dominating. It is bad we didn't qualify but we will move ahead and adjust and correct our mistakes for future tournaments," Elegbeleye said.

"We are not happy missing out of the Africa Cup of Nations. Missing out of the next Nations Cup that we won in South Africa in 2013 and miss out as the defending Champions is unfortunate," he lamented.