By Mark Baber
April 1 – As the blame game for Nigeria’s disastrous qualification campaign for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations begins, the Nigerian Football Federation says its legal team is looking to take the African Football Confederation (CAF) to court over their exit, claiming it was unfair.
Nigeria were knocked out of the running for the 2017 AFCON after losing 0-1 to Egypt which left them on just two points as against Egypt’s seven but are now looking at challenging their exit. Shortly before the Egypt game, Chad withdrew from the tournament, leading to the annulment of their results and to the second place team in Nigeria’s group no longer being eligible for entry to the tournament as one of the two best placed runners up from the qualification groups.
Demola Olajire, NFF’s assistant director of communications, said: “It is rather unfortunate that Chad, one of the teams in the qualification group, suddenly pulled out of the race, leaving only three teams left in the group, and only the winner of the group guaranteed qualification. This appeared to have taken away our worst–case scenario of qualification. However, our legal unit is looking at the propriety of changing the rules midstream.”
CAF have already made it clear that they were simply applying the rules of the tournament to the situation which presented itself after Chad’s withdrawal.
NFF President Amaju Pinnick has refused to accept responsibility and resign, saying: “I am not going to resign. I don’t think we have done very badly. When you are in a battle field you don’t retreat as whoever comes in will have to begin from where you started: he might run into the same pit.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Sports Minister Solomon Dalung has apologised to Nigerians saying: “I personally apologised to Nigerians for the inability of the Super Eagles to qualify for the campaign to AFCON. We must plan better again.” The Minister also made the observation shared by most observers that: “We have no good reason not to qualify if we had planned well and also organise ourselves rather it was crisis all the way rocking NFF.”
For his part, Pinnick has urged people to focus on the coming battle to qualify for the 2018 World Cup stating that: “The federation would now concentrate on qualifying for the FIFA World Cup finals in Russia in 2018 by liaising with their agents to utilise the two available windows in June by organising friendly matches for the national team.”
Pinnick has also made clear to reporters that Nigeria’s salvation lies in employing a foreign coach, telling journalists that “I cannot put our World Cup hopes on a local coach. We need a world class coach who can reshape our football.” The NFF clearly have someone in mind, believed to be Paul Le Guen, but the new coach will not be officially announced until after a meeting with the government’s Sports Minister next week.
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