Posted by By INNOCENT DURU on
Former Super Eagles' coach, Paul Hamilton, has called on the federal government to probe the contract that empowered former Super Eagles German Coach, Berti Vogts, to live abroad while he worked for the country.
The amiable tactician, in this interview with Sunday Sunsport, said: "I don't understand why we employed a million dollar coach and he did not live in the country while he was coaching the national team.
Since the 1960s I have been around in the national teams, I have worked with about 23 expatriates and none of them lived outside the country while working for Nigeria. So, how come Vogts was allowed to live in Europe and would only come around a few days before the Eagles had matches? Our relevant authorities should probe the contract that gave him such leverage to live outside Nigeria while he was supposed to live and discharge his duties from here."
On who should take over the Super Eagles' job, Hamilton said: "Any Nigerian can coach the Eagles. By any Nigerian, I mean anybody who has been involved in the game at the top level. Any of Stephen Keshi, Sunday Oliseh, Samson Siasia is qualified to coach the team."
He went further: "Look at the Keshi, who we are still undecided on whether to give the job or not is being chased by other countries. With their interests in the job, given the necessary support and mandate, I believe they will excel.
"Even though Siasia is in charge of the Olympic team, he can still be employed to handle the Super Eagles. Since he would be employed with some assistants, the assistants can hold forth for him pending the time the Olympics is over.
"It's a good thing that the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) are now looking the way of indigenous coaches. I thank them for that initiative because with that step, we can secure tickets to play at the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola and the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.
He went ahead to criticise the lapses in football administration in the country, heaping the blamed on the quality of people working in the football house.
"One is not happy with the lapses in our football, which are due to administrative ineptitude. It is simply caused by those who have no business in running the game, but who are there due to their political connections. I used to call such people political loyalist. It is a thing of regret that things have continued to go this way," the ex-Eagles' star lamented.
He concluded by denying that he was abandoned when he was sick as alleged in some quarters.
"I was not abandoned when I was sick. Many people came to see me in the hospital. In fact, it took me days to convince the doctors to allow people in to see me. The number of people that kept coming to see me was too much that the hospital management refused to give them access. But I had to appeal to them, explaining that they were my admirers and they should be allowed in. Even the NFA, through their Secretary General, Bolaji Ojo-Oba, reached out to me. Patrick Ekeji was also there at my bedside.
"I pray that the kind of concern that was shown to me should be giving to others, not necessarily only to people who are in position. It should go round to every Nigerian."