Ghanaian-born Coach Cries Foul in Nigeria

Boamah Faults Pepsi Award Panel On Year's Best Coach

GHANAIAN-BORN Julius Berger coach, Phillip Boamah who guided the team to Pepsi league victory last season has faulted Pepsi award committee for declaring coach Alphonsus Dike as the best coach for the 2000 season. Boamah believes the title should have been awarded to him.

The soft spoken ex-Ghanaian international and coach of Shooting Stars of Ibadan insisted that he would have been a better choice if the panel had considered merit.

"Without mincing words, the panel's choice of Dike was induced by sentiments. I rightly deserve the award given my team's feat last season. Lobi Stars coach, Godwin Uwua won the award in 1999 and I strongly believe that his selection that season was because he led Lobi to league victory. So why did the panel take another measure. The answer is simple because I am a Ghanaian," Boamah stated.

He challenged the Pepsi award panel to tell the Nigerian sporting community the criteria used in picking Dike who handled Katsina United to second place of the league last season while the coach who won the league was not mentioned.

Boamah hinted that Pepsi award panel may be uninformed of his credentials and exploits. "If their judgment was based on sentiments it means they are totally wrong, I have been in Nigeria for over two decades. I played and won the first continental trophy in Nigeria, the African Cup Winners Cup in 1976, played for the Nigerian national team, the Green Eagles. Apart from that, I am presently carrying Nigerian passport because I married in Nigeria and have all my children here, so it is wrong for some people to regard me as a foreigner when I am more Nigerian than some of them," Boamah explained.

The former Shooting Stars coach recalled the time he was invited to the national team alongside Alphonsus Dike. Dike was playing for Rangers in Enugu while he was with Shooting Stars.

Boamah disclosed that his regrets for the Best Coach Award which eluded him was not because of the cash reward attached to it but that would have raised his CV and boosted his career as a coach. "The committee was unfair to me. The award would have been a sufficient treasure to me whenever I leave Nigeria for my country. I would have proudly displayed the certificate at the Aflao border before crossing over to Ghana and would have been received as a worthy ambassador to Nigeria," he added.

Boamah concluded by saying that he may be tempted to challenge the Pepsi Award Committee's judgment in the law courts, "because I viewed the whole exercise as a fraud."