Stephen Keshi: NFF sacked former Super Eagles coach because of an unknown Nigerian, player Gabriel Okechukwu

Stephen Keshi invited an unknown player, Gabriel Okechukwu which landed him the sack from the Super Eagles coaching job

The President of the Nigeria Football Federation Amaju Pinnick has revealed the main reason behind the sacking of former Super Eagles coach, Sunday Oliseh.

Keshi was sacked on Saturday, July 4 for what the NFF said was a 'lack of commitment on the part of the Delta State born coach'.

Pinnick in an interview with Hip TV revealed that Oliseh was asked for breached of contract and also because of a certain unknown Nigerian footballer.

The NFF president revealed that even when Keshi agreed to invite only Nigerian players in competitive leagues, the invitation of a certain Gabriel Okechukwu was a shocked to them.

Read: NFF sacks Stephen Keshi

The NFF issued a query to Keshi over issues surrounding Okechukwu's inclusion in Super Eagles squad against Chad in African Cup of Nations qualifiers which Nigerian won 2-0.

 

Keshi was asked by his employers to explain why the non-league striker made the Eagles substitute bench in that game in Kaduna.

Striker Okechukwu features for non-league Water FC of Abuja and he failed to make the final cut for the U20 World Cup in New Zealand after he was named on a 35-man provisional squad.

Read: Full disciplinary report of Stephen Keshi's sacking

The unknown striker was even handed jersey No.10 once made famous by the likes of Austin “Jay Jay” Okocha.

Pinnick in the the interview confirmed that Okechukwu's case along with the reports that Keshi applied for another job were the reason why he was sacked.

"When you employ a coach, you sign a contract and in that contract there are clauses and there are no go areas," Pinnick said. 

 

"We signed a contract that when picking players, you must pick a player from a competitive league, then a  player came from no where and all of a sudden he was given the number 10 jersey.

"The disciplinary committee spotted that and brought it to the executive committee and while were still looking at that, we saw that he had applied to coach Cote d'Ivoire.

Read: Sunday Oliseh confirms as Super Eagles coach

"We went through our own internal procedure we took a division that we have to disengage."

Pinnick went on to explain the NFF's decision to employ Sunday Oliseh.

"Employing Oliseh was a collective decision by the committee," Pinnick said.

"Oliseh is some one who is very experienced in CAF and FIFA. He actually wrote the report for the last World Cup for FIFA and for somebody to be given that kind of responsibility shows that he is technically compnetent.

"We decided to bring him in with a foreign adviser he had worked with before with a couple of other coaches and so far we believe he will deliver."

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