Onigbinde, Pinnick Differs On Development of Nigerian Football

Onigbinde, Pinnick Differs On Development of Nigerian Football

By Niyi Busari

Despite recent failures recorded by Nigerian national football teams, the President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick, has insisted that the country’s football is not going through a poor patch.

He made this known in his welcome address as chief host at the 50th year remembrance ceremony of the late Teslim ‘Thunder’ Balogun, held on Wednesday at the Sheraton Hotel, Lagos.

 It would be recalled that the Super Eagles failed to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar while for the first time in 32 years, the Super Falcons lost three games in a competition at the just concluded Africa Women’s Nations Cup in Morocco.

“Nigeria Football is making progress by all standards. All our junior national teams, men and women – the Eaglets, Flying Eagles, Flamingos and Falconets – have qualified for their FIFA World Cup finals. The Senior Women Team, Super Falcons, also just picked the ticket to play in the Women’s World Cup finals.

“The Golden Eaglets and Flying Eagles all won WAFU Cup titles recently. These are noticeable feats that amount to some progress. The only one we fell short was the World Cup qualification. This happens in football. It is impossible to win every match,” he said.

Meanwhile, former Super Eagles coach, Festus Onigbinde disagreed with the former CAF First Vice President insisting that Nigeria football is nosediving under Amaju Pinnick eight years because there are no developmental programmes.

"Fifa does not welcome intrusion into football so you can understand why Nigeria football is nosediving, I've been to more than 40 countries in Africa and none has talents like Nigeria but we are not developing them because no developmental program. I want to repeat Teslim Balogun initiated this in 1961 developmental football."