the white person they need one year to adapt, to know the country and the players - they are told 'don't worry, take your time," Nigerian Coach Stephen Keshi told the BBC Sports.
He added:"That is unprofessional and it is one of the main issues that is destroying African football."
Many African nations have a long track record of dependence on foreign coaches take for example Malawi; They have over the years hired expatriate coach after expatriate coach such as the controversial German tactician; the late Burkhard Ziese the Dane, Kim Splidsboel, Englishmen Alan Gillett, Michael Hennigan and Stephen Constantine to name but a few and none of which brought any tangible success to Malawian Football.
Malawi has never qualified for the World Cup, and has only twice qualified for the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), in 1984 and 2010 and interestingly enough on each occasions that they have made it to the AFCON local coaches had been in charge on both occasions: the late Henry Moyo in 1984 and Kinnah Phiri in 2010.
Recently the Malawian Football authorities sacked Phiri and appointed Eddington Ng’onamo who is to be assisted by; Patrick Mabedi and Ernest Mtawali in a caretaker capacity.
But old habits die hard as the Association later hired Belgian; Tom Saintfiet specifically for a game against Nigeria, dropping Mtawali to accommodate the Belgian.
The belief that only expatriate coaches can deliver success according to, Peter Alegi, an America's expert who has written extensively on African soccer derives from the continent’s colonial legacy.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the colonial history of Africa, the sort of idea that you need white supervision for black achievement, and there’s the desire of Africans to reverse that,” he said.
But he was quick to point out that there has been very little coaching development in Africa.
“But I think one also has to think of the fact that there has been very little coaching development in Africa and sometimes the football associations select a European coach based on their record,” he added.
There is also the culture of instability where associations are not patient and do not keep coaches long enough to allow them to succeed take for example Malawi again, since 1998 to this year (2014), Malawi has engaged Twelve (12) coaches; which according to the country’s online media reports had an average tenure lasting only fourteen months and this includes both local and international coaches alike.
Interestingly though, most of the local coaches hired have been recycled through the system over and over again, due to the fact that only very few of these homegrown coaches have the appropriate qualifications to coach the national team.
As a result whenever there is a vacancy for the national soccer team coach it’s the very same faces who had failed before that are considered again and again.
Meanwhile the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) is considering employing another coach to replace the recently sacked Phiri, and have once again prioritized an expatriate coach to take over on the guise that all the best local tacticians have been tried and have failed.
Kent Mensah of Goal.com said in one of his online articles published back in 2012 that African FAs who prefers foreign coaches for local coaches have a good reason in doing so.