Adegboye Onigbinde Incurable Optimist  on Indigenous Talents 

GLOBAL SOCCER

For whatever a foreign coach may have achieved for Nigerian football, the Late Adegboye Festus Onigbinde remained an unrepentant advocate of indigenous coaches for the country’s national teams and grassroots football development as the answer to the problems confronting Nigerian football, as against the reliance on Nigerians of European descents, something the Modakeke high chief described as ‘reaping where we did not sow’. With the demise of the respected former CAF and FIFA instructor Monday evening, Kunle Adewale recalls what the man stood for

Though his failing health recently was sparsely reported in the news, death however held grip of Nigeria’s foremost football coach and administrator, Chief Adegboye Festus Onigbinde on Monday evening at the age of 89.

The passage of the Modakeke High Chief and the first indigenous Nigerian coach of the Super Eagles, was announced by one of his daughters, Mrs Bolade Adesuyi, in a statement.

“We announce the passing of this great man, a Modakeke High Chief, the first indigenous Nigerian Super Eagles coach, father, husband, grand father, Chief Festus Adegboye Onigbinde who passed unto the great beyond a couple of minutes ago,” screamed the statement from the family.

While he was alive, the Super Eagles Coach to the 2022 World Cup co-hosted by Japan and South Korea was an astute believer in home grown coaches for the country’s national teams, while he also strongly advocated for the development of grassroots football as a final solution the problem Super Eagles was always confronted with rather than relying heavily on European players of Nigerian descent to play for the senior national team.

When erstwhile President of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, Amaju Pinnick was championing his VIP recruitment policy for the Super Eagles, whereby lobbying any young European player of Nigerian descent to star for the national team, Onigbinde was highly critical of the policy, describing the move as NFF trying to reap where it did not sow.

The respected former CAF and FIFA’s Technical Study Group member did not subscribe to the idea of wooing players of Nigerian descent to don the national team colours, berating the NFF for always going after already-made stars abroad instead of developing the abundant talents in Nigeria.

When Tammy Abraham spurned Super Eagles to star for England’s Three Lions, inspite of Pinnick’s assurance to soccer loving Nigerians that the England-born will surely play for Nigeria, Onigbinde wondered then, why the federation would wish to reap where it did not sow, saying that Abraham was born and developed in England and should be obliged to play for England.

“Yes, we should beg them since there is no meaningful, functional developmental programme at home. It’s the football federation’s fault. If we have a functional development programme, no player would be in a position to take the country for a ride. Ideally, the nucleus of the national team should be home-based. That is what I have always said, but nobody seems to be interested in listening to my advice,” a furious Onigbinde had said.

He said the rejection of Nigeria by Abraham should make the NFF eggheads wakeup to their responsibilities.

“Why won’t the young man make the statement on social media? I do not really blame him. What happens to the many talents in the Nigerian league back home? There are good players of Nigerian descent abroad quite alright but it seems they are practically begged to represent Nigeria now.

“South Africa came to beat us on our ground with nine home-based players in their line-up, and we got the result we deserved with our foreign based players,” the Madakeke high chief stated.

Onigbinde’s believe in injecting the national team with young talented home-based players with the drafting of players like Ademola Adeshina, Paul Okoku and the likes to the senior national team.

Adesina got his national call-up when he was discovered by one of the coaches of the then Green Eagles, Eto Amaechina, during the 1981 National Sports Festival in the old Bendel State.

“I was in the contingent as a sprinter but Coach Adegboye Onigbinde said since I played football for Osogbo NEPA, I would be useful to the football team. I was on the reserve bench in a match involving Oyo State and Niger State and we were trailing Niger by 3-1 and I was called upon and I scored three goals and we eventually won the match 4-3. After the festival, I was invited to the national camp and after the screening I made the grade and was selected to play in the 1982 Africa Cup of Nations.

For Okoku, he said it was Onigbinde that drafted him and five of his colleagues from the U20 to the senior national team after returning from the 1983 U20 World Championship.

When Late Stephen Keshi won the AFCON in South Africa in 1983, the former CAF and FIFA instructor was one of the first to congratulate him saying: “I am happy that Keshi was able to beat my record. This has vindicated me on my hard stance that Nigerian coaches are better. I continued urging him to be focused when he reached out to me because distractions could get him off the tracks. It is a victory for him and all African coaches,” he said.

Onigbinde’s footprints was seen beyond Nigeria and Africa, as he also took his coaching expertise to Trinidad and Tobago.

Therefore, when Emmanuel Amuneke was appointed coach of Tanzania, Nigeria’s 1985 U20 World Cup bronze winner, Christian Obi, indeed charged the eggheads of the NFF to reconsider its stand on Nigerian coaches, just as he traced Amuneke’s appointment to some of the inroads built by Onigbinde.

Obi said: “I must emphasize that Amuneke is not the first Nigerian coach that would take appointment outside the shores of the country. When Adegboye Onigbinde took over as manager of Trinidad & Tobago, their football was in crisis but he (Onigbinde) gave them timeline to stabilize their football and before the expiration of the timeline he had begotten for them a good and stabilized national team.”

The late coach indeed traced the turning point of his career to a chance encounter in the early 1960s with Nigeria’s legendary footballer Teslim Balogun.

Onigbinde regarded Balogun, better known as “Thunder”—as the greatest footballer Nigeria had ever produced.