I almost died as Eagles coach, says Oliseh

[ Pius Ayinor – PUNCH ]  Former Super Eagles coach Sunday Oliseh has again made shocking revelations about his time as the coach of the team. He gave detail account on Sunday via his Twitter handle with a link to his blog, SundayOliseh.tv.

Oliseh resigned in February after only seven months on the job. The former Eagles captain who left abruptly cited unpaid salaries and poor working conditions as reasons for leaving the job.

Oliseh said he had quite a difficult time with the Nigeria Football Federation, with some senior players like Mikel Obi, Vincent Enyeama and Victor Moses.

Of his near-death he wrote, “One day whilst coaching the Super Eagles in Abuja stadium prior to the Burkina Faso game, all of a sudden I felt dizziness, light headedness, headache and could barely stand. I managed to finish the session before calling on the doctor into my room who was clueless to what was happening.

“From then on it was sleepless nights, loss of appetite, high blood pressure and before I knew it I started losing weight.

“After several visits to doctors abroad nothing was found though the doctors found anomalies they couldn’t pin point the actual illness to.

“For weeks I was bed ridden, lost 7 kilos and could barely walk 5 metres without sitting down. My family was petrified and all feared the worst. One thing was for sure though: had I not taking that evening flight to Germany when I did, there was a strong possibility of a far worse outcome. Thank God for his mercies.”

Oliseh also took another dig at the NFF President Amaju Pinnick insisting the FA boss made false claims regarding coaches being paid up front.

He wrote, “On the day I was unveiled, the very vocal president of the NFF, Amaju Pinnick boasted to the world that he was going to pay me 6 months’ salary in advance, we were never ever going to be owed as he had procured sponsorship from Zenith Bank, that he knows I am the African Guardiola etc. These were declarations that not only added unnecessary pressure on us but made us hated by certain quarters as ‘prima Donnas.’

“We now know that, that was a ploy to make the world falsely believe that I was giving all the tools to succeed whilst intending to eventually starve us of tools to succeed in reality to have a scapegoat and employ his dream foreign coach for obvious reasons, as was tried failingly recently!”

Oliseh insists that the noise made by the NFF on the salary may have pushed kidnappers into targeting his family members.

“In October 2015, with the belief that I had millions from the NFF, kidnappers attacked a family member of mine’s home in Lagos, but thanks to God the intended victim was not at home.

“Shaken at the news, I called Mr. Amaju to inform him of my displeasure of his false public declarations in my regard and there and then the seed of resignation started to grow in me. Is this worth my peaceful family suffering?

“I signed my contract as Chief Coach of the super Eagles in July 2015 and was paid in August for July and August but did no longer get any payments till January 2016. My assistants were worse off as they received just a month’s pay as at January 2016. The NFF and its allies in public claimed otherwise.”

On the NFF technical committee he wrote, “The moment Ayansi was replaced as head of the infamous technical committee by Mr. Chris Green, we all knew that disaster and chaos was on the way.

“Chris Green is a man who late Stephen Keshi almost beat up just midway into the 2013 AFCON adventure in South Africa and eventually was going around all of Rwanda telling all who cared to listen that he won the 2013 AFCON for Nigeria and the 2014 World Cup qualification and not Keshi.