A former vice-chairman of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Chief Gabriel Chukwuma (Ogbuagu), has hit hard on the president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Ibrahim Gusau, for not piloting the Federation’s activities “in a way that the much-needed results could be achieved.”
According to him, it instead offers Nigerians every now and then painful results from lack lustre outings.
Chief Chukwuma, who is also the proprietor of Gabros FC of Nnewi, said he was not happy with Gusau for being at the helm of affairs “when Nigerian teams are losing crucial matches at every level of football, thus dashing the hopes and expectations of millions of Nigerians out of selfishness.”
He said, “Within a space of time, he has crashed our Under-23, crashed our Under-20, and crashed our Under-17 and now the senior national team, the Super Eagles, thus bungling our world cup hopes because of the business interest of going for the highest bidder. The implication is that Nigeria will not be represented at the world football level in the next few years and this is regrettable.
“This is despite all my advice, as the highest stakeholder in private football club ownership. In fact, there is nobody that has invested in football more than I have. Does it mean that we cannot do away with sentiments in football to get good results? Of course, the coaches of these teams know that they get their contracts with money and so, don’t need to get results.
“In short, Gusau should start by apologising to Nigerians for crashing our national teams in a short period of time because it is the tax payers’ money that is being spent on them. Unfortunately, they see it as free money which they can eat without getting the desired results.”
Continuing, he said, “Again, until we jettison this northern/southern sentiment in football where we give an opportunity to somebody who doesn’t know anything about football administration, we can’t get results. When we give an opportunity to somebody who has the capacity to deliver without caring to know his state, tribe or nationality; that is when we will get the desired results.
“I say it again that Gusau has no business and the required experience needed to be in the Glass House as head of the Federation.
“He focuses on government’s largesse and does not have interest in private club ownership, that’s why he is not ashamed of his failure after crashing four national teams of the country. I urge the government to set up a panel of inquiry immediately to look into the failure or poor runs of our national teams in recent times. In short, I regard Gusau and his’ co-travellers’ as ‘Idumota traders’ and not football administrators.”
On the Super Eagles’ coach, Finidi George, Chief Chukwuma advised him to “resign honourably before it is too late.”
“He doesn’t have the required experience to tinker the Super Eagles to success any day, any time.
“Like I pointed out in my previous analysis, Finidi is not in the class of world class coaches who have won laurels for different countries and cubs before now who are ideal for the Super Eagles. He is just a player’s agent like some of our coaches who buy their way to coaching positions and collect money from players in return for matches, leaving out those who merited it. Unless we discard these players’ agents, we will never make headway in football development.”
