I have no hand in Siasia’s team, says players’ agent

Peter Ejiasi, the football players' agent accused of influencing the selection of players in the Samson Siasia led Flying Eagles squad, which participated in the FIFA U-20 World Cup in September in Egypt, says he is innocent of the allegation.

Sources in the team had alleged that Ejiasi who is based in Spain influenced the team selection process by ensuring his clients made the team after he helped the Flying Eagles coach, Samson Siasia to secure the pre-tournament camp in Mallorca, Spain.

Ejiasi, though, admitted his contribution in organising the team's camp but he said that Siasia was responsible for the choice of players he took to the competition.

Untrue

"It's all rubbish and there is no truth in those allegations. It's a pity people misjudge passion to mean selfish interest. I was really impressed with Samson Siasia's performance after he led the Flying Eagles to second place in the 2005 U-20 World Championship in Holland. But we didn't get to meet until 2007 or thereabout, during the qualifiers for the Beijing Olympics.

"And after his appointment again for this same job early this year, he called from Holland saying he would need a place in Spain to camp his team ahead of the World Cup. I took it upon myself and looked around Spain and I suggested some options. He personally came to Spain to assess the options and made his final decision on Mallorca. He felt the exclusiveness of the environment would provide the kind of concentration he needed for his team's pr eparation.

"So if you say I have influence in securing the place where the team camped for the World Cup, I will definitely say yes because I was so passionate to help in preparing my country's team for the World Cup. But when people talk about me having an influence in the selection of the final squad or picking players for the matches in Egypt,

it's quite unfortunate because there is no truth in that.

"Indeed I could have sat down and watched without doing anything, and still do well in terms of my livelihood. I have no responsibility regarding the players and I don't think if a coach has gotten to two finals of a major competition, such a person can still be pushed around by anybody who calls himself a players' agent.

"I believe those are great achieveme nts that do not come by chance, I believe he was capable of the responsibility given to him, but sometimes players do have bad tournaments and I think that was what happened in Egypt because there were some exciting players would ordinarily have done well.

Ejiasi said that Obiora Nwankwo, Ibok Edet and Oluwashina Abe, the players linked with him, were all in the team even before the African Champ ionship in Rwanda, a period before Siasia ‘s appointment and wondered why anybody would come to the conclusion that he forced them on the coach.

Developing our football

Ejiasi also said that there was lack of genuine efforts towards developing the game in the country. He blamed the domestic clubs in Nigeria for not putting in place clear-cut measures towards recruiting and nurturing of talents for our national teams.

"The problem is that we want to achieve success without really planning for it. Football is more than that because it involves a lot of things including on and off the field planning like the marketing. We do not have an organised system for nurturing our talents and yet when we participate in competitions we want to achieve feats similar to those achieved by other countries that have concrete plans in place.

"Let us ask ourselves: what are the contributions of our professional clubs in developing players from the academy level, do we really have such a functional arrangement? All over the world, it is the job of the clubs to harness raw talents, develop them in the academy, and produce players for the national teams, but can you have that when most of our clubs are run by government? We can't really achieve anything in terms of developing the game.

He said it is surprising that Nigerians continue to resort to blame games when things go wrong when we actually don't really have plans in place. According to him, the running of football in Nigeria needs to be professionalised with corporate organisations actively involved.