At the turn of the 2010s, Iffy Onuora was job hunting. Thoughtful, articulate, and with bags of experience as a journeyman striker in the Football League, Onuora would theoretically make an ideal candidate for a coaching position, having retired from his playing career in 2004. He even boasted the top coaching qualification in European football, the UEFA Pro License, then only one of only 111 coaches in the world to have it. His only opportunity to prove himself as a manager, however, had come in a solitary season at Swindon Town, after which he was shunted aside in favour of Dennis Wise. He went on to have stints in caretaker charge of Gillingham and Lincoln City; in September 2009, the latter club sacked him and Peter Jackson, whom he worked alongside as assistant manager, and he had been out of work since then.
“I’d gone for an interview with an academy in Nigeria,” reminisced Onuora, during a phone conversation in mid January, “and there were several people on the interview panel. It was done through the LMA - there were some gentlemen there who had set up an academy in Nigeria, and obviously with my family background that was appealing.” (Iffy was born in Glasgow to Nigerian parents). “I didn’t get the position for one reason or another, but there was a guy I got to know subsequently called David Emegi. When they gave me some feedback a few days later, he kind of said ‘look, I’d like to stay in touch, I have one or two other things, are you happy for me to do so?’ And I said yes, as you would, but actually didn’t think an awful lot of it cos you kind of hear that quite a lot these days. Whether anything happens is another matter.”
On this occasion, however, something did happen. That something would take him to the second largest country in Africa, and one of the poorest in the world. It would lead to a ten month odyssey of trying to marshal a football team on a shoestring budget, that had been banned from international competition for the previous two years, into taking on players from the richest leagues in the world. He would also have to instil some semblance of timekeeping into them, and not become the only professional football manager in recorded history to be sacked over a cow related dispute. At least on that final front, Iffy Onuora‘s spell as Ethiopia National Football Team manager was not a success. But it left him with some extraordinary stories to tell.
It is important, for this story to make sense, to be aware of something - the English Premier League is the most relevant, dynamic, eye-wateringly popular cultural export that our country has to offer. Essentially every single country in the world wants a piece of the action. Even the North Korean regime is said to follow the Premier League, albeit on a tape delay through expensive pay-tv channels, secluded away from the eyeballs of the average citizen. As such, when Ethiopia was looking to reintroduce itself to international football in 2010, having served a two year ban from FIFA, a close relationship with the Premier League was high on its agenda. Which is partially why, in the spring of that year, Iffy Onuora received a fateful phone call from David Emegi. “He said ‘look, I’ve got something you might be interested in, can you meet me at the Premier League offices in London?’ It felt a little bit furtive, he didn’t exactly tell me everything about it. I went to the Premier League offices, and Dave was there, there was another gentleman there who turned out to be the President of the Ethiopian Football Federation. They’d come out of a ban from FIFA, a two year ban I think it was, and they were looking to re-establish themselves as a footballing nation again. They wanted to do things properly, they wanted a Pro Licensed coach, of which I was one, I think the fact I had African heritage appealed to them as well. So that’s how it came about.”
Onuora would go on to spend a weekend in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, trying to get a sense of the vibe. He inadvertently caused a minor controversy by having the temerity to leave again, with the Ethiopians under the impression he had already accepted the job. But he wasn’t deterred. “I just went there with a spirit of adventure. I’d rather always have a go at something and fail than not have a go at all, but I never particularly anticipated failing anyway, I just always had that kind of mentality. But on its merits I was really proud to say ‘yeah I’m the head coach of a national team.’ I thought it was a privilege as much as anything, so there was never really any kind of doubt for a moment that I would accept it and stay in it as long as possible.”
Ethiopia’s suspension from international football had been sanctioned in July 2008, after the Ethiopian government had fired Federation President Ashebir Woldegiorgis the previous February (FIFA take a consistently dim view of that kind of governmental meddling in their football federations). Even before that however, the country had not been a footballing powerhouse. They hadn’t qualified for the biennial Africa Cup of Nations, the continent’s most prestigious tournament, since 1983. They came rock bottom of their qualification group for the 2008 edition, the last they’d been allowed to take part in. They’d had more success in the yearly CECAFA Cup, a regional tournament for Central and East African nations, winning it in 2004 and 2005, but said tournament never saw them come up against the continent’s real footballing powerhouses, most of which were and still are concentrated in North and West Africa. Suffice to say, they had never qualified for a World Cup, though they made the FIFA World Youth Championship in 2001, losing all three games but giving the mighty Netherlands a scare in a 3-2 defeat.
The facilities with which Onuora would attempt a revival of the country’s footballing fortunes were also basic. For a start, the quality of the pitches was decidedly patchy, and he speaks of returning to the UK at Christmas and Easter and looking longingly at the average school playing field, wishing his squad of internationals could be blessed with such a surface. Some players played in old, decaying football boots, or even turned up without boots at all. And, as he recalls, the country’s enthusiasm for the Premier League manifested itself in a very visible way. “On one of the first day’s training with the national team, they all turned up in Man Utd shirts, Liverpool shirts, whatever. And I thought ‘this is ridiculous. They’ve got to use a common kit if they’re national team players.’” Onuora would end up sinking his own money into the team, just to ensure players could at the very least have appropriate footwear.
What I found particularly striking about this is that even the absolute punching bags of European football, the likes of Liechtenstein and San Marino, would surely be accustomed to a basic level of quality in their facilities that surpassed what the 11th most populous nation in the world could offer their elite players. But in terms of raw talent, there was far more potential in that Ethiopian side than those aforementioned European minnows. Certainly, the country lacked any famous names, as evidenced by the fact that the usually exhaustive Transfermarkt database seems to think they started Onuora’s final game in charge with only eight players. But of those eight, midfielder Shimelis Bekele and striker Oumis Oukri would earn moves from Ethiopian clubs to the substantially better funded Egyptian Premier League, while talismanic forward Fikru Tefera had already played in South Africa and the Czech Republic, and would later compete in Finland and the nascent, lavish Indian Super League. These might not have been players who would get lusty glances from the top European sides, but they knew what they were doing on the pitch, as Onuora explains. “From a technical point of view, I’d say they were very good, and I think now if I look back and see how even in League One and League Two level teams are playing out from the back, they were doing that naturally, and they did that throughout, they’d always play out from the back.” It’s an achievement to be able to play technically adept football on such frequently dreadful pitches. But of course, Iffy was keenly aware that being good passers of the ball only takes you so far. “They were good players. I think your job (as coach) really then is to organise, get them into some kind of system of play that they’d understand and adhere to, and when we did that, and when we did it in a way where we felt confident and assured, we looked as good as anybody I think. When we looked a bit ragged and when there was probably an inferiority complex, and I’m thinking about the game in Abuja against Nigeria which was my final game, I think we looked what we were. A bit naive, men against boys, that kind of thing, and some of that was tactical, but most of it was actually psychological.”
Talk of that fateful match in Abuja is getting ahead of ourselves, however. That game, in April 2011, was Onuora’s eleventh in charge of Ethiopia. After starting his reign with two friendlies, a 3-0 defeat to Kenya and then a 1-0 win against minnows Chad, his first taste of competitive football, and the country’s first in two years, would be a qualifier for the Africa Cup of Nations, at home to Guinea. Guinea were a decent side. They’d never made the World Cup but qualified consistently for the Cup of Nations, and their starting eleven against Ethiopia was speckled with real quality. Defender Kamil Zayatte played for Hull City, midfielder Ibrahima Traore was at Augsburg in Germany and now plays for one of the better teams in Europe in Borussia Monchengladbach, and there were a clutch of players making a living in the decently competitive environment of Turkish football. Nonetheless, in front of a raucous 20,000 crowd in the Northern city of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia got off to an assured start and took a 1-0 lead before events conspired against them. A sudden, torrential rainstorm turned the pitch into a near unplayable quagmire, and the experienced, physically stronger Guineans turned the screws. A 4-1 defeat was the outcome, an indicator of the scale of the task Onuora had on his hands.
Nonetheless, there were still reasons for optimism from the periods where Ethiopia had run Guinea close, and they got off the mark in their next qualification game, beating Madagascar 1-0. The next challenge would be the 2010 CECAFA Cup, which took place in November and December in Tanzania. Despite their relatively recent success in the competition, expectations were low for Ethiopia going into it, given their well documented off-field issues. In a four team group stage, Ethiopia lost their opening match 2-1 to defending champions Uganda, but managed to upset Kenya by the same scoreline three days later. A 1-1 draw with Malawi (one of three teams from outside East/Central Africa invited to make up the numbers) was enough for Ethiopia to progress to the Quarter Finals, where they would encounter more invited guests, in the form of Zambia.
Some may remember that just over a year after this tournament, Zambia would create one of the most powerful sporting stories of the 21st century, when they became shock winners of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations in the same city where, 19 years prior, their first team squad had been wiped out in a horrific plane crash. There doesn’t seem to be a record of the squad Zambia took to the 2010 CECAFA Cup, so it’s difficult to say how much of a resemblance that team bore to 2012’s giantkillers. They were certainly lacking their inspirational coach, Herve Renard. Still, they either sent a side that would win the continent’s richest prize in 13 months, or had enough squad depth to send a B-team; either way, their resources outstripped Ethiopia’s, and so the 2-1 win for Ethiopia that sent them through to the semi finals was a splendid result for them. Onuora’s men would lose 1-0 to the third invitees, the Ivory Coast, in the semi finals (who sent a squad of exclusively domestic based players, so no Drogba or either of the Toures), and then go down 4-3 to Uganda in a helter skelter 3rd/4th place play off. Still, Ethiopia’s run to the final few generated much enthusiasm back home, and Onuora and the squad were warmly received by the Football Federation upon their return to Addis Ababa.
Going into 2011, Iffy Onuora had every reason to be optimistic about the future of his fledgling side. They had reached the semi finals of a tournament, competed well against far more established footballing nations, and were developing a degree of tactical discipline and understanding. He certainly would have been forgiven for not considering that his next match would be his last.
The circumstances surrounding Ethiopia’s 4-0 defeat to Nigeria, and the events leading up to the game that fatally undermined Onuora’s position as manager, are murky and controversial. There are three reasons that have been interpreted as being responsible for his departure. One was the defeat itself. One was a touchline ban Onuora had incurred months prior for arguing with officials in the previous African Nations qualifiers, which the Ethiopian Football Federation retroactively decided was a grievously offensive sign of poor discipline. And one involves a herd of cows.
In late July 2010, less than a month into his career as Ethiopia manager, Onuora took his training camp squad on a road trip to a small village, where his assistant manager Atnafu had assured him there was a good quality pitch the team could train on, as well as a small coffee bar they could relax in afterwards. Onuora’s relationship with Atnafu wasn’t particularly easy. “We actually found a way to get on quite well towards the end, but I think he was quite a complex character. He wasn’t a football person as well, he was more of a translator… on a day to day level, your relationship with your assistant is important. You can fall out from time to time, but you have to fall out from a position of friendship, trust, and strength. And that’s the basis for it, otherwise it doesn’t work. Now we never had that relationship, and we fell out because of various things, and that makes it quite a lonely job as well.”
One of the first flashpoints between them would come when the team turned up at Atnafu’s vaunted village retreat, only to find a playing surface with a steep slope, barely a blade of grass, and most egregiously, cows merrily defecating in the centre circle. Everyone had to pile back into the car and return to base camp, and the day was wasted. Five months later, back in England for Christmas and still basking in the glow of his CECAFA Cup success, Onuora gave an wide ranging interview to the Daily Express on his experiences in Ethiopia thus far, during which he related the story of their bovine encounters as a light hearted anecdote.
In any context, an away game against Nigeria would be difficult for a team of Ethiopia’s standing. Onuora’s attempts to prepare the team for the toughest challenge of their qualification campaign were further hindered by the Federation's inability to secure a friendly game to help with preparation, despite offers from Ghana and South Africa. It meant that the Nigeria game would be the Ethiopians first together in three and a half months, and the Super Eagles had shown them no disrespect with their team selection. There were four players with Premier League experience in the starting eleven - Joseph Yobo marshalled the centre of defence, Victor Anichebe and then West Ham loanee Victor Obinna were a threat in attack, and most imposing of all was the presence of Chelsea’s erstwhile midfield enforcer, John Obi Mikel. West Brom’s in-form Peter Odemwingie would come off the bench to cause further problems. Other noteworthy figures in the starting eleven included Efe Ambrose, Taye Taiwo (then on the verge of a move to AC Milan), and Ahmed Musa. There was a considerable challenge, both tactical and psychological, in trying to brace a group of players who would themselves closely follow Europe’s top leagues, and idolise some of their players, to attempt to compete on an equal footing with them.
As usual, Onuora was upbeat. “I think a qualifying campaign is a bit more of a leveller, because it’s a 90 minute game. You’re always looking at things about how you can nullify some threats that they have, or convince the players that you’re good enough to beat them over 90 minutes. Now, obviously 9 times out of 10, they’ve got to have a bad day, you’ve got to have a very good day, but I think you’re always looking and being positive about ‘this is going to be a good day.’ It’s the day in front of you. It creates the possibility in the moment, and those 90 minutes, to get an outstanding result. I guess that’s a bit naive saying it like that just because quality players always win. Look at my old team Marine playing against Spurs the other day (in their historic FA Cup 3rd round game). They’ll have said all those things, but Spurs still ended up winning 5-0 because they had the best players and manager. But I’ve got no doubt that the Marine manager wasn’t saying to the guys ‘we’re just here for the ride guys, we’re doing great, we’re on telly, enjoy yourselves.’ He’ll have said ‘you never know. It’s the beautiful game, it’s why we all love it. If you do this, you do this, you play unbelievably, they do this, who knows?’ And I had that kind of similar message. As an underdog, you do hold out that possibility, until such time the game pans out, an hour’s done and you’re staring down the barrel, in which case, you just want it to end.”
Even if you’ve completely ignored the narrative thrust of this article thus far, that final remark by Iffy should indicate that Ethiopia didn’t force an upset in Abuja. I was curious to what extent he felt the Nigerians’ relative experience at an elite level of football affected his players mentally.
“Yeah, I think there was that (aspect), and I think also there was probably the dynamics in Africa as well. Southern and East Africa is viewed slightly differently to West Africa. Whether it’s Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana, these guys traditionally, going back 10 or 15 years, supplied players to the Premier League, so there’s a perception of strength. Physical strength as well, ‘these guys are stronger than us,’ and, you know, physically the Ethiopians weren’t a dominant side. I had to convince them, and I was able to to some degree, that actually the game isn’t about physicality. We’d just come off the back of Spain winning the World Cup, so I was able to kind of make that connection, your Xavis and your Iniestas and your Fabregas’ and your David Villas. So I was able to convince them of that for a period, but when you go up against them in the flesh, the hard reality is slightly different. And yeah, I think from every aspect, the physicality, coming up against a physically dominant John Obi Mikel, a physically dominant Joseph Yobo at the back, Victor Anichebe, Odemwingie, Musa. These guys were top players in Europe. And they knew it as well, so they carried themselves in a certain way, with confidence. I remember just looking at them lined up as they went through the national anthems, and in the corridor, you could almost see our players start to wilt a little bit even. Then you got that sense that their players, on their toes, chest out, believed that they were gonna win the game, which they did… we had our moments by the way. We went down, we lost a very early goal, in the first minute or two. We’d already talked about managing the crowd and expectation early on. Unfortunately we went down a goal early on, but after that, for the rest of the half we actually played quite well and pushed them back a little bit. They scored a second at the start of the second half which is a bit of a body blow, and we still kept going. And the third one again is the killer and after that you’re thinking ‘oh God, can the game end please?’ So they scored at good times, early in the first half, early in the second half, and then probably midway through the second half they get their third goal and after that you’re thinking “damage limitation.”
That damage limitation would go as far as allowing the Nigerians just one more goal, with Real Zaragoza’s Ikechukwu Ukwe rifling in from outside the box. Upon returning to Ethiopia with his deflated players, Onuora learned that his Daily Express interview had been distributed internationally, and that the powers that be at the Federation were outraged at the portrayal of their organisation as the sort that would allow their players to share a pitch with a herd of shitting cattle. Anyone who has even a passing interest in African football, at both club and international level, will be aware of the widespread culture of short termism, of impatient chairmen itching for an excuse to make a managerial change. Less than three weeks from when Ukwe’s shot crossed the goal line in Abuja, Iffy Onuora was relieved of his duties as manager of the Ethiopia National Football Team.
There’s a terrific epilogue to this story. Iffy Onuora’s replacement at the helm of Ethiopia was former Namibia and Zimbabwe manager Tom Saintfiet. After just five months in charge, the Ethiopian Football Federation realised they couldn’t actually afford to pay the sort of wages that a foreign manager would command, and so Saintfiet, a Belgian, resigned. His replacement was indeed an Ethiopian national, with Sewnet Bishaw reappointed for a second spell in charge, having won the CECAFA Cup in 2005 during his first. Bishaw would go on to be arguably the most successful manager in the history of the Ethiopian national team, returning them to the Africa Cup of Nations in 2013 and, even more remarkably, taking them to within a solitary goal of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, bowing out to Nigeria in a playoff on away goals. Staggeringly, Bishaw would be sacked after this, a victim of his own colossal overachievement. Ethiopia didn’t come close to reaching the 2018 World Cup, and haven’t been back at the Cup of Nations either, despite its expansion to 24 teams. At time of writing, they are 150th in the FIFA World Rankings.
Iffy Onuora hasn’t had a head coaching role since leaving Ethiopia, but has found other ways to find fulfilment in football. Since 2012 he has served as a coaching instructor with the Professional Footballers Association, and combined that with a role as its Equalities Officer. In April will move to the Premier League to become its first Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. While Onuora admits he will miss the coaching side of his responsibilities with the PFA, the lure of being the driver of positive social change in the biggest league in the world was too much to resist. “(It’ll) be two days a week in the Premier League offices in London, working from home as well, and just… whatever Head of Equalities ends up meaning, and I’m saying that because it’s a new role. So it’ll be scoped out as I go on and get my feet under the table. But it’s exciting, it’s something I’m looking forward to.”
An issue that Onuora is particularly well placed to comment on, what with his experience in both coaching and Equalities, is the continuing absence of BAME coaches at the highest levels of English football. At time of writing, of the 92 clubs that comprise the Football League, there are just six managers or head coaches from such a background - Nuno Esperito Santo at Wolves, Keith Curle at Northampton, Darren Moore at Doncaster Rovers, Chris Hughton at Nottingham Forest, Valerien Ismael at Barnsley, and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink at Burton Albion. The remaining 86 are straight white men. There are no female, or openly LGBT coaches, in managerial positions at Football League clubs. The question is, what can tangibly be done to make top level football coaching positions accessible to people from diverse backgrounds? In his job at the PFA, Onuora helped implement bursaries for black and Asian coaches, but acknowledges much more needs to be done.
“That’s a big challenge for us - I know there’s Paul Elliott at the FA, and that will be a big part of my role (at the Premier League) as well… I was on the phone to a professor at a university I know and he’s done a lot of research on this. Most jobs in football are network based, relationship based, and they’re habit forming, and they get passed down. So if you’re not in the network, you’re always on the outside looking in. And that can start from a very early stage in football. For example, if you look at the traditional relationships even in the dressing room, the captain normally has a strong relationship with the manager, and the board. I’d love to know what percentage of captains went on to become coaches and managers, and that’s probably how it starts. You’re viewed as a senior player, and if you’re at a club for any length of time, seven or eight years, there’s a natural, strong relationship there. And that feels like it’s somewhere where you could develop a possibility of being either in the dugout, or the boardroom. We always understate the importance of having black people, or black ex-players in the boardroom, because they’re the decision makers. So there’s that aspect of it. And then you’ve got to do the work, and no one wants any handouts. You’ll be amazed at the number and extent of the qualified coaches out there who haven’t got opportunities to go and use them. Coaches who are qualified to a great level, but then there’s a glass ceiling, and they never smash it to become the head coach, or even head of coaching or head of the academy. These positions just seem beyond many black coaches. There’s bigger numbers working in academies… but unfortunately that doesn’t translate into the first team picture and all the possibilities from there. That’s the challenge. And people do push back because they think it’s giving handouts. It’s not. No one’s saying ‘there’s the job, it’s yours,’ it’s actually getting in front of people who are the decision makers and making the case for the job with the insight and knowledge you have.”
As an aside, I was curious about this idea that more BAME captains might lead to more BAME coaches, and did a bit of research into the career paths of Premier League captains after they retire from playing. I was originally going to include the results in this article, but there was so much to unpack it threatened to take this whole piece wildly off topic, so I’ll put a separate article on it together instead. For what it’s worth I think the numbers do broadly support Onuora’s theory, but obviously there are caveats.
The most notable way professional football has attempted to address this disparity in the backgrounds of its coaches is by flirting with American Football’s ‘Rooney Rule,’ in which teams are compelled to interview at least one candidate from a minority background for any coaching positions. While a compulsory iteration of the scheme has had a tangible impact on the diversity of academy coaches, the Rooney Rule has so far gained little traction when clubs are looking to staff their first team coaches. Onuora was at the forefront of the attempt to get the Football League to embrace this idea, but was met with limited enthusiasm.
“We were very vocal at the PFA about the need for such a rule, and instrumental in trying to sell it to coaches as well. And then a year into (the campaign), having smelled the possibility that this could happen, we went to the EFL to say ‘listen, could you help with its development further?’... there was a risk that it would wither on the vine, because there wasn’t any architecture surrounding it. We hadn’t looked at the diversity of the panel interviewing, we hadn't looked at giving feedback, best practice around that area. We can’t just have a rule and then expect it to work and happen and be impactful all on its own. It needs support. We were pretty much dismissed (by the Football League).” Having been handwaved away by the relevant authorities, the PFA were left to convince 12 clubs to sign up to a pilot scheme voluntarily, but with no structure compelling them to respect what were in effect self imposed rules, the Rooney Rule concept was quickly sidelined by clubs in need of instant results.
“If you take your mind back to when it came out at the beginning of the 2016-17 season, Wolves were one of the clubs who were happy to be part of the pilot. And unfortunately for us, Wolves quickly didn’t use it. They had Walter Zenga as the manager at the start of the season, two months later he was sacked and they brought in Paul Lambert straight away without using the code, and that undermined it, possibly fatally so, from the outset. And even though it was expanded beyond the 12, I’m not sure how many clubs use it, it’s not really relied upon to any great degree, whereas actually the mandatory scheme, used in the academies, has had an impact. There’s more accountability around it, so there are more black coaches coming through the system as a result of that.”
Wolves don’t deserve to be singled out for specific criticism here - after all, having dispensed of Paul Lambert’s services at the end of that season, they would go on to appoint Nuno Esperito Santo, who has become the most successful black manager in the history of English football. As Onuora points out though, it was having the right connections that got Santo the opportunity he made such good use of; in his case, being represented by Portuguese super agent and influential advisor of the Wolves board, Jorge Mendes. And he makes another valid point when he suggests proper implementation of the Rooney Rule may help clubs avoid slipping into the cycle of short termist coaching appointments that, for example, led to Sunderland and Swansea tumbling out of the Premier League.
“There’s nothing wrong with a decision maker saying ‘you know who’d be a good fit for my club? Iffy Onuora, he’d be good. I’m going to seek him out, he’s done a great job there, he’s in my mind. However, I think I’ve got people who can look after the ship for the couple of weeks it might take to run a proper recruitment process. So even though I’ve always liked Iffy, I’ve watched him on TV, I like the way his teams play… you never know who might come through the door if I open that process up.’ So that’s all you want people to do. Have someone in mind, of course, why wouldn’t you? But interview half a dozen others with real strong CVs. I don’t mean interview just everyone who applies, that would be impossible, you get 500 applicants every job. But... if you work with a recruitment firm to find a credible candidate, and get a shortlist, and interview them, Iffy Onuora might still be one of those people, that’s fine, you hope he is. Still interview him, and still employ him, because the idea is, the average tenure is what, 18 months? Less than that, a year? In a year, 18 months, you might be looking for another manager. And now you’re in a far better position because you just interviewed six or seven managers a year ago, and you think ‘actually, I really did like him. We chose Iffy, but I liked this guy as well. We’re gonna go find him, see what he’s been doing and talk to him.’ And by the way, you forget how decision makers also talk to other decision makers, so even if they employed so and so, and interviewed someone else who didn’t get the job, when their mate in League Two is looking for a manager, they say ‘by the way, tell you who you should go and talk to - Iffy Onuora. He came and interviewed for us, we got a recommendation, came through our process, we employed so and so but we were all impressed by him. Go and talk to him.’ They’re the kind of things you want to happen. Cos at the moment, you get a job now, a manager gets sacked, it’s filled within 24 hours. People know who’s gonna get the job, it’s a done deal. I don’t know how you’ll ever change that completely, but there’s got to be some way of making it more of a transparent process than it is now.”
Two final points of order. First of all, Iffy Onuora has been open about his Christian faith (in his journal of his time as Ethiopia manager, he mentions getting to experience services in churches across Africa). It always intrigues me to see how people are able to balance faith with the demands of professional
sport - after all, both, in their own ways, demand total devotion and commitment. Onuora agrees that it isn’t always easy. “I think at times the culture of football isn’t always conducive to faith. You have to be really strong. But there is an organisation, Christians in Sport, and I could rattle off, off the top of my head, a lot of colleagues and friends who are very much people of faith and maintain that throughout their careers. I could probably even highlight a manager - Jurgen Klopp. Unashamedly Christian, and lives that life as well. I think to be a faith based person doesn’t mean you have to be demure and quiet and reflective also; you can be animated, and certainly Jurgen Klopp’s that!... You find your faith in quieter moments at times, which people maybe don’t always see. And again there’s always that kind of thing, and I’ve had that discussion as well with friends - at what point do you explicitly evangelise your faith as opposed to internalising it? So maybe you carry yourself in a certain way that people see, appreciate, admire, respect. And people can find that kind of thing attractive and faith defining, as well, I guess. Whereas some people, it’s ‘I’m a Christian, let’s pray together’ - they’re a bit more in your face about it. So I don’t think one’s better than the other, it comes down to who you are. But a faith is like many things, you can put it alongside family - I’m not ranking it in terms of importance, I think as a Christian you rank God as the big guy and as number one, but I think it forms part of your building blocks in you as a person as well as your family, friends, support - what you look for in yourself, integrity and all those things, faith is a massive part of all that, the building blocks of your character. And I think they’re the things you always take with you, moving forward in life as best you can. You stumble, of course, it doesn’t mean to say you’re perfect, we all make mistakes, but you try and aspire to something that is bigger than yourself I guess.”
Finally, in an attempt to give this article some kind of link to the original concept behind this blog, I asked Iffy, who I knew enjoyed a good book, what he was reading at that moment. “I do like to read when I can. I’ve got a young family so it’s not always possible, but I’m reading a couple of books at the moment. I’ve started books, get really enthused by it, and then put it away, not because I don’t want to read it but because of time. So I’ve got these books at the moment. One’s by Akala, you know, the activist, ‘Natives.’ So I did the same, got that, thought ‘this is great, going to take my time reading it,’ and that was about two months ago. I’m actually holding it now as we speak, it’s just on the side of the coffee table, so I literally reached across to remember ‘yep, still reading that.’ So that’s one, and then another one which actually probably sums up nicely the conversation we just had. It’s one called ‘Know Your Why’ by Ken Costa. He’s a Christian but he was a businessman... So I think for me that’s quite good, especially, I guess, two or three months before taking up a new job, a new role, with a new emphasis, more responsibility and impact. That’s something I’ll definitely turn to in the next few weeks when I get a chance, just to ground me nicely before I take up a new position.”
If there’s a unifying theme that sums up this wide ranging conversation, it’s that I think footballers who push the boundaries of what we expect from them are really fascinating, and worth highlighting. There are, relatively speaking, a fair few people who trod a similar path to Iffy Onuora as a player, bouncing between unfashionable Football League outposts. There is absolutely no one who has pursued the same passions as him after they’ve hung up the boots. A spirited campaigner for equality, an intellectual, and, indeed, an international bovine wrangler. It’s a remarkable life story thus far, and as he approaches a new project at the Premier League, it’s perfectly clear that Iffy Onuora is nowhere near exhausted yet.
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