The Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare, is gradually trying to bring sanity into the sector. It was great to see the minister attend the final of a boxing tournament in Oworonsoki where he made bold his pledge to adopt an eight-year-old boxer, Sekinat Quadri. Dare saw the video of the young boxer on the social media and followed up by attending the competition and he gave out prizes to other boxers who excelled at the event.
This, is part of the Talent Hunt Programme of the minister which is targeted at grassroots. We commend the minister for this initiative and urge him to do much more by getting people to go round the six geo-political zones and bring out hidden talents for the future.
We acknowledge that the Sports Minister has been very vibrant on the social media. Dare was irked by the poor results recorded by the national teams in recent time. No doubt, the poor results recorded are very disturbing. The Falcons and the national U-23 team missed the tickets to be part of the Tokyo Olympic Games football event next year. The U-17 and U-20 national teams fumbled respectively at the FIFA World Cup this year. Nigeria also failed to qualify for the CHAN tournament meant for home-based players. Poor results were also recorded by the home-based team that took part in WAFU Cup. Sad enough, Coach Imama Amakapabo was the handler of three of these teams. He led the U-23 team to Olympics ouster, led the CHAN team to another ouster just as the CHAN team crumbled under his tutelage. We charge the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) not to entrust another national team on Amakapabo and he should proceed on refresher course abroad if he is to continue as one of the national coaches. After the string of bad results, we make bold to say that the former Rangers coach is no longer fit to be an under-study to Gernot Rohr in the Super Eagles.
The minister in a reaction to the string of poor runs also on his Twitter handle said: “Government will take appropriate steps and in a timely fashion to improve our football fortunes. Current outcomes offer the opportunity to review, re-strategize and develop a long term plan for football development. We will dust up great ideas already abandoned and implement…football needs a return to the basics of grassroots football, pristine sports. Nigerian football across the spectrum will benefit from this new outlook which will involve critical stakeholders. Government, mindful that Nigeria is a football nation will be bold in embracing best practices in modern football.”
The minister’s reaction was in order but we frown at the shock response of the NFF as the federation argued that Eagles are the best yardstick to measure standard of the game in the country. We vehemently disagree with the football body because the federation cannot lay claim to the growth of many, if not all the players. We are aware that the transition from the age-grade is not working and the feat of the players abroad informed their invitation to Eagles. Sadly, the real developmental teams are the ones recording poor results. The domestic league players and the younger generation of players are those the NFF should nurture and boost of their exploits. We urge the NFF to put its acts together to get things right in terms of results rather than engage the minister in war of words. The federation should take criticism in good faith.
We commend the current form of the Eagles in recent time. The Eagles played 2-2 draw away to Ukraine and also was forced to a 1-1 draw by Brazil in some of their recent friendlies. In the two matches played so far in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, the Eagles came back from a goal down to beat Benin 2-1 and also were down 1-0 before beating Lesotho 4-2 in an away tie.
However, the exploits of the current Eagles is not in any way due to NFF’s administrative tenacity. We know that the respective clubs of the Eagles stars play a huge role in their development and not the NFF. Wilfred Ndidi, for example, has been very consistent with Leicester and this has improved his game in the national team. Joe Aribo was impressive in Scotland and now making impact in the team.
The domestic league needs help because there is no sponsor, it is not on television and the issue of hooligalism has to be completely put to rest. These issues should be the concern to the federation and energy should be channelled towards the development of the league so that the country’s continental teams will consistently post good results in Africa.
We also expect that efforts should be made to train the coaches and referees better while there should be a good plan to guarantee transition in the age grade national teams.
The NFF should avoid sentiments and face its duties across all aspects to make crazy football loving Nigerians happy
