It is the height of reckless, uneducated and watery argument to deliberately over-emphasize the Malian background of the new Super Eagles coach Eric Chelle, for the purpose of just wanting to rubbish his appointment by the Nigeria Football Federation.
While we all acknowledge that the beauty of Sports is our divergent opinion, which makes the beautiful game of football more interesting, but very importantly, as informed people, there should be a minimum level of informed narration we should be seen as putting out there.
How can some people be stressing that the NFF appointed a Malian coach without expanding on the comprehensive facts around his full background and his competence as a Manager.
Eric Chelle is a French man who lives all his life in France born to a white French father and a Malian mother.
It is therefore very laughable to me as an African Football story teller of mixed Nigerian and Ghana heritage to see informed journalists go this route to discredit the appointment of the new Nigerian coach.
I thought what Nigerians should be focusing on is strictly his competence and how good he can be with the Super Eagles with his widely hailed attacking football philosophy.
But because he is mixed, some people don’t want to emphasize competence and experience anymore because of parochial and shallow sentiments.
One thing that is very clear which the NFF looked at in its selection process is the African football experience and the umpirical results of Eric Chelle.
The 47 year old new Super Eagles gaffer is one of the fastest growing young foreign coaches in Africa who many footballers of the game have tipped to dominate African football coaching for a long time.
In fact the NFF should be commended for having the foresight to grab the coach now ahead of other top African countries like Ghana, Senegal and the North Africans.
Unless there is more to why some people are pushing the narrative that Eric Chelle is a Malian, it is therefore totally empty for anyone to overly emphasise that aspect of the Frenchman profile, rather than on the basis of competence.
The clips, the results and stats are there for anybody to see how Eric Chelle’s Malian team fair at the last AFCON in Ivory coast.
As an African football Storyteller, I am sure many Nigerians will remember the name Amadou Jean Tigana.
The 69 year old former French midfield maestro, was a successful French player and manager who was widely sought after by many African countries.
He was a successful coach in France and even in the English Premier league when he led Fulham to promotion.
But the famous Tigana was even more Malian than Eric Chelle because his father was from Mali while his mother is french and he was born in Bamako.
I could imagine that his coaching competence was being looked down on, on the basis of his Malian root, the way some are stigmatizing the Frenchman Eric Chelle now because of similar Malian background.
I don’t want to believe that this ridiculous narrative is being pushed by some ex Nigerian internationals, who ordinarily should see this as a challenge to their coaching career and rally support for the new coach, but rather engrossed themselves with Petty conspiracies.
_Written by Frimbong Samuel
African Football Storyteller
