The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr. Sunday Dare has demanded a written explanation from the Nigeria Football Federation following the inglorious exit of national teams from football tournaments.
He made this known on Monday in a meeting that lasted less than 30 minutes, while directing the NFF to “provide the federal government with written explanation to the developments of our teams failing in four major tournaments.
It will be recalled that apart from the failure of the Olympic Eagles and Super Falcons to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, other national football teams like the CHAN Eagles and the national U-17 team have recorded failures on the international scene.
While Nigerians were yet to recover from the disappointment of the Golden Eaglets failure at the just concluded FIFA U-17 World Championship in Brazil, the Olympic Eagles on Friday crashed out of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifiers in Egypt.
The minister said “From stock taking it is now time to render account to Nigerians,” he said even as he warned that “We need to take very difficult decisions.”
“We need to run a reality check. Nigerians are not happy with our state of football. We must start with the football administration. Nigerians want to see us working proactively to get things working again.”
“I am not saying we should win at all cost, beyond identifying various issues what do we need to do to deal with these issues.
“The board has a responsibility. I am asking the board to do surgical examinations of what has gone wrong with our football,” he said.
