Nigeria
coach Stephen Keshi, in collaboration with his employers the Nigeria
Football Federation, has responded to the query the world football
governing body, FIFA issued him. The query is over his alleged racist
remark targeted at Malawi technical adviser Tom Sainfiet.
The Nigeria coach was given a September 16 deadline to respond to the query.
The
General Secretary of the NFF Musa Amadu who spoke with The PUNCH on
Tuesday confirmed that the response to FIFA’s Zurich headquarters was
dispatched on Monday deadline.
He said, “Yes, we met the
deadline. The response was sent by email and fax. And today (Tuesday) we
are sending the hard copy by courier service.”
Amadu said he was positive that FIFA would understand the background under which the statement was made.
“We’ve
explained the circumstances under which the statement was made; it was
under normal pre-match antics we see of different coaches.
“Of
course we all know that Keshi is somebody who has cross-cultural
background and incidentally played his professional football career in
Belgium where Saintfiet comes from. He was never involved in any racist
row all through his career as a player. His intentions were pure and not
the way it appears; they were merely based on football relations.”
The Malawi federation reported to FIFA what it called ‘racist’ remarks by Keshi aimed at the Belgian.
“We
feel the racist remarks by Mr Keshi are not acceptable,” FAM’s general
secretary Suzgo Nyirenda said after their federation sent official
complaint to Zurich.
“We thought it was a personal attack on our
coach and we had to defend him regardless of skin. We felt we should
help our coach and at the same time put a stop to the racist remarks
from Mr Keshi. We have sent evidence of what Keshi said and we hope FIFA
will come up with some measures to control Mr Keshi.”
In the
phone interview aired on UK-based African television show, Keshi was
quoted to have said, “I think the coach of Malawi is crazy. If he wants
to talk to FIFA, he should go back to Belgium. He is not an African
person, he is a white dude, he should go back to Belgium.”
It is
not yet clear what type of sanction may be handed Keshi if found
culpable. Active players are usually suspended from a number of matches
and fined as well while teams are made to play their games in empty
stadiums if their fans are guilty of racist acts. In recent times acts
of racism have been rampart in the Italian league while the separate
cases involving Luis Suarez and former England captain John Terry made
the headlines in English football.
FIFA and other regional football governing bodies have stepped hard against racism in response.
