Oparanozie Explains Why She Was Removed As Falcons' Captain

Oparanozie Explains Why She Was Removed As Falcons' Captain

By Bethel Kalu

Shortly after the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the captain of the Super Falcons to that tournament lost her position as the captain of the team. The team had qualified for the round of 16 for the first time in 20 years.

Questions were asked why she was changed. Now, she has given her own side of the story. It will be recalled that the coach of the side, Thomas Dennerby left the team and the NFF appointed Christopher Danjuma to take care of the team. On his first day as a coach of the team, he appointed Barcelona striker, Asisat Oshoala as the captain, a decision that raised dust and controversy. Finally, the team failed to qualify for the Olympics for the third time consecutively with Danjuma failing to qualify them for the second time

Speaking to Black Ballers podcast, Desire spoke about her challenges as the team captain. In an extensive audio made available to Bussybudies, Desire said the problem started when she demanded that the girls be paid their allowances since 2016.

“A lot of things happened, and people don’t really know what’s happening inside, they only view things from outside and all of that. Before the World Cup, actually, we were being owed from way back 2016. 2016 to 2019, that’s three years. And ever since we were owed, they kept making promises. ‘We will pay you, we will pay you’ and three years went by. So, we were like ‘you guys can’t keep promising us, we will, we will, we will. We don’t even trust you people any more. All the time we will, we will, we will. At the end of the day, I mean, we are not kids. We have families who rely on us and all of that.”

It will also be recalled that the team had a sit-in protest in France as they refused to leave their hotel rooms.

Oparanozie said that the NFF agreed to pay the team but on the condition that only those in France would be paid. As the captain, Desire insisted that players who were not in France should be paid too. According to her, the fact that some of them could not make it to the World Cup should not deny them their money. Oparanozie further said she fought for those players. The NFF later paid players in France but Desire said she protested

“No, it doesn’t work like that, it’s not fair. It is not. All the people that have share from that money that are not in this team, you should, I mean, they should receive their monies first before us that are here.

So, that was one of the problems, and they obviously didn’t like it. But knowing how they do things and all of that, If I hadn’t done it that way, those people won’t get their monies, and then they would be like ‘you people are selfish and all of that, you’ve gone to collect your monies, you didn’t even bother for us to collect ours.”

Desire said her actions made the NFF officials furious

“So, that was part of the problems and some of them swore that ‘we are not going to have this. She is, I mean, we can’t control her’ and all of that. But it is not my problem. I did what I felt was right. Even if that’s the only thing I did, I’m very happy.”

Desire said she has no regrets about fighting for the rights of players as the captain. Since then, she was not invited for the next Falcons games, they eventually failed to qualify for the Olympics

The four-time AWCON Winner and FIFA U-20 World Cup Silver Medalist was officially unveiled on Tuesday, June 30, by French club, Dijon. She left En Avant Guingamp after six years at the club, scoring 45 goals in 106 games. She had scored 6 goals in 12 games before the league ended because of the global pandemic