Diego as UAE coach makes no sense

If reports this week are to be believed then the UAE Football Association is considering approaching Al Wasl to seek permission to speak with Diego Maradona about filling the national team coach's role.

If that is the case then this column has one simple piece of advice to the officials at Al Khawaneej: Don't!

It is true that Maradona has been a superb publicity tool for UAE football and Al Wasl in particular. The game has never had so much coverage, both at home and abroad. He has brought sponsors and interest to Al Wasl and perhaps, just perhaps, helped sell the UAE as a football destination to some high-profile recent arrivals like Asamoah Gyan and Luca Toni.

Maradona's appointment as national coach might secure the team - currently 138th in the Fifa rankings - some high-profile friendlies, and he would have the advantage of knowing the only way is up after five straight losses in a disastrous World Cup qualifying campaign.

Football backwater

But nowhere in his record is there any indication he is equipped to turn around the fortunes of a national side from what is currently a football backwater. When he was coach of Argentina they only scraped through to qualification for the 2010 World Cup and once there were hammered 4-0 in the quarter-finals by Germany.

That squad included Messi, Aguero, Mascherano and Tevez. If he cannot get a side with star players winning consistently, what hope does he have with technically inferior ones?

That question already appears to have been answered at Al Wasl. The Cheetahs are languishing in sixth place in the Etisalat Pro League, out of the President's Cup, all but out of the Etisalat Cup and two of the team's four overseas players have been offloaded.

Coaches in the UAE have been sacked for those sorts of results, but Maradona remains.

For Al Wasl, the appointment appears to have made commercial sense. But from a football perspective it has been an embarrassment. Even more of an embarrassment, however, might be to sack Maradona and admit the appointment was wrong in the first place. On that basis, it is possible to see the appeal of the national role for Al Wasl: Maradona leaves and the club save face.

But that hardly seems a basis for appointing a national coach. And in any case, if Maradona did take the role, what guarantee is there that he would avoid embarrassment? He speaks his mind, a refreshing quality, but that might not go down well in UAE football, if results started to go against him.

Long-term appointment

Above all, the appointment needs to be made on the basis of the successful candidate being in it for the long-term. The next coach would be the 32nd person to fill the role for a country that is only 40 years old. In coaching, at least so far, Maradona has not done long-term.

If the UAE FA does want a quality outsider then the officials could look at three excellent contenders under their noses.

Walter Zenga at Al Nasr and Al Wahda's Josef Hickersberger both have track records of getting the best out of local talent, while Hickersberger and Sharjah's Jorvan Vieira have vast international experience, Hickersberger taking Austria to the 1990 World Cup finals and Vieira leading Iraq to an unlikely AFC Asian Cup title in 2007.

With the World Cup campaign over, the UAEFA have the chance to take their time and consider their options, and they should do just that. And great value though he is for UAE football, its officials' first act should be to strike a line through the name of Diego Maradona.