The Nigeria Football Federation is incompetent Like the Super Eagles, Nigeria’s senior women’s football team, the Super Falcons, will not be in the lineup when the FIFA Women’s World Cup kicks off next year in Brazil. Last Thursday night at the WAFCON 2026 playoff in Casablanca, Morocco, South Africa’s Banyana Banyana inflicted a painful 2-1 defeat on the Falcons. It is the first time since the inaugural edition in China in 1991 that Nigeria will be missing the biggest stage of women’s football. It is also the first time that the 10-time African champions, even as cup holders, will be kicked out of the WAFCON at the quarterfinal stage. Nigeria was expected to make amends for the loss to Cameroon in that quarterfinal by going all the way to picking one of the two slots reserved for Africa to the 10-team Inter-confederations playoffs in November. There, the two African playoff winners would join eight others from Asia, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, Oceania and Europe to fight for the last three tickets to the World Cup in Brazil. But all that permutations have now fallen apart, leaving Nigeria out of the party in Brazil next year. South Africa and the other winner, Ghana, will represent Africa at the Inter-confederation playoffs. Like DR Congo did in the men’s playoff last March, denying Nigeria the chance and ultimately going all the way to qualify for the 2026 World Cup in North America, South Africa and Ghana could become the latest beneficiaries of one or two of the three tickets at stake to Brazil 2027. The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) should be held accountable for what happened. Instead of putting all efforts in ensuring that Falcons prepared adequately, the leadership of the federation was busy crisscrossing the country, politicking on how to win the September 27 Elective Congress in Lafia, Nasarawa State in order to perpetuate themselves in office. The Ibrahim Musa Gusau-led NFF board has done enough damage to football in the country more than any other. This is the first time the country’s two biggest football brands would be missing from the World Cup simultaneously. But that is not all. The ‘Dream Team’ (under-23) failed to qualify for the last Olympic Games. The ‘Golden Eaglets (under-17) also failed to qualify for the last World Cup. In other climes, these setbacks are enough reasons for Gusau and his board to resign from NFF. But Gusau and his men are plotting their return unmindful of the fact that football is the single biggest sport that unites Nigerians. It brings joy, apart from the economic values derivable from it. As the biggest financier of football, it is time for the federal government to have a say in those who manage the game at states and federal levels without necessarily interfering in the day-to-day running of the associations and the NFF. The state FAs are under the state governments. Let the governors through their sports commissioners ensure that only competent persons get there. They must stop using these offices as lollipops for party supporters. To ensure that these FA chairmen who populate the NFF Congress do not go to Lafia to rubber-stamp Gusau for another four years of misery for Nigeria, that Elective Congress should be put on hold while search for competent men (and women) to revive the administration of the game in the country begins in earnest. Two back-to-back missed men’s World Cups and now a first absence for our ladies at Brazil 2027 are enough reasons for the NFF leadership to vacate office. We have had enough of incompetent fellows at the helms of Nigerian football.
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