The Super Eagles’ loss at home to Guinea Bissau in the Ivory Coast 2024 AFCON qualifying series brought yet another bitter feelings for Nigerian fans.
In the days of Amaju Pinnick as President of the Nigeria Football Federation, it would have been so easy to put all the blame on him. But who now is to blame, the players, the coach, the NFF or Ibrahim Gusau, its new president? What too can we say about the other national age grade and women’s teams which have also been struggling?
At the post-match talk with the Super Eagles, Gusau read a riot act, insisting that only players with total commitment would be allowed to wear the national jersey. That was perhaps an allusion to low morale on the part of the players.
It would seem he was only being economical with the truth or just diplomatic in not letting Nigerians know he may be struggling with the government in funding Nigerian football and managing the entitlements and expectations of the players, technical crew and backroom staff of virtually all the national teams since he took over six months ago.
How, for instance, would the players be motivated when the coach, Jose Peisero, is not motivated? Recall that after the sports minister, Sunday Dare, railroaded the NFF to sack Gernot Rohr, he afterwards gave them lease to employ another foreign coach with an assurance that the government would take charge of the coach’s salary. Understandably so because, given the prevailing economic and business climate in the country, corporate and brand sponsors are lethargic to invest reasonable sponsorships in the national teams. It is six months now and the minister has not advanced a dime to the NFF for the payment of the coach.
To mitigate the situation, I do not know how Gusau managed to raise three months salary for Peseiro, certainly not from the minister’s pledge, and nothing yet said about the outstanding.
That was how the Super Eagles went into the game against Guinea-Bissau on Friday.
Also, the government contributed not a dime to fund the game, but worst, even now, is that the minister does not seem to be interested in how the return leg in Bissau on Monday, March 27 would be funded with regards to flight, accommodation, feeding, medicals and all other logistics.
This presupposes also that neither the players’ entitlements in the first leg nor in the second leg is guaranteed.
It has been so with all the international engagements of the national teams. It was so with the women team to the U-17 World Cup. It was so with the national Olympic team in their recent engagements. It was so with the men’s U-20 team to the U-20 AFCON and even so with the CHAN team. Nothing given but much expected.
Even when government makes some approvals for the teams, the funds never really get down to them. For example, out of the N2bn approved for the prosecution of the last Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, only N1.5bn allegedly got to the NFF. It was same with the N800m approved for the girls in 2022. Only 50 percent has been received by the NFF.
Before now, we thought Pinnick was the problem, possibly hated for his high street taste with his personal resources, but now we have Gusau, an astute administrator and public servant with cool conservative mien, a former Zamfara State FA chairman, who had also worked closely with the likes of Aminu Maigari.
It all leaves one wondering if the government is really interested in the growth of Nigerian football and the success of its national teams. All that there is is the minister fluffing himself in the media, as usual, blaming everyone but himself and never able to engage his own government to meet its basic responsibilities to the sector that he ministers over.
The best (or worst?) we have seen him achieve over the years, shamefully so, was getting a presidential approval to bar the national basketball teams from international engagements for two years because he failed to hijack the board for his friends, and a matching order for the NFF to expand its board to accommodate the pretenders to integrity and expertise who whisper sycophancy into his ears.
For these, and shamefully again, Dare cannot beat his chest to point to any achievements through his tenure and nothing will change until there is a new government and probably a new sports minister who would deal with the currency of honesty, sincerity, clear vision and commitment to the development and growth of Nigerian sports.
