Sports Minister Sunday Dare has expressed regrets over Super Eagles failure to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
“We drew 0-0 in Kumasi and drew 1-1 here and that meant the away goal rule gave Ghana the edge. It is most unfortunate and regrettable that we are not going to Qatar, but that is sports. Nothing is 100% certain.
“On our part, the Federal Government gave every support necessary. We got the stadium ready in all its glory. We mobilised Nigerians and other football lovers to fill up the stadium. The NFF called up a solid cast of players. 60,000 voices sang the National anthem in what must have been one of the most uplifting moments one could imagine. The fans gave their vocal support till the very end. The president of the nation, though saddened by the tragic events in Kaduna was determined to lend his support, and not let terrorists determine and define the activities and schedules of the Nation and its leaders with their opportunistic and wicked acts. – which would be kowtowing to their agenda. On the day, it wasn’t enough.
“We will move quickly because we still have a lot of work to do to give Nigerians the calibre of senior team it deserves. We will review all that we did leading to the game, take tough steps to redirect the development of our football and restore the DNA of Nigerian football. Whatever is necessary will be done quietly, firmly and determinedly.
“I believe better days are ahead for Nigerian football but only if we make the necessary changes. We need to rebrand our football and return to the grassroot and youth football culture of the past. Nigeria is a football loving Nation and it deserves the best.
“I understand the unhappiness that followed our non qualification for Qatar 2022.
Read Also: NFF Apologises To Govt, Nigerians Over Super Eagles’ Failure To Qualify For World Cup
“We take responsibility. We will rebuild and thank the Super Eagles players for their service. Our apologies as a Football administration ecosystem go out to fans who struggled to make it to ther appropriate seating positions.”
That said ,”Vandalizing and destroying sporting infrastructure at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium is not acceptable regardless of unhappiness.The Nigerians that did this must be condemned.
“When I watched the clips and after I inspected the damage, knowing the work and the amount of efforts and resources that have gone into resuscitating the edifice, both from the private and public sectors, it was just very saddening. In a single day, I was weighed down by our missing out of the World Cup and then the vandalisation. A very sad development.
“I saw a number of young persons destroying valuable items in the stadium. Obviously, as Nigerians they have a right to be dissapointed, but they do not have the right to destroy public property in which monies from taxpayers and funds from patriotic private individuals were invested. No excuse can be advanced for destroying infrastructure put in place to fix infrastructure gaps. It is akin to shooting ones self in the foot. The mentality of destroying things built to serve law abiding citizens is condemnable and will be sanctioned.
“Already, work is on going. Two committees are working concurrently. An investigative committee is looking at the security breaches and the vandalization that occured while the other committee is a combination of people from the Sports Ministry, the NFF, Para Military and Security people. They worked on the Nigeria -Ghana match preparations .
“These committees are expected to give a comprehensive report by Tuesday next week.
“On the whole, the efforts we have been putting into birthing a long term sustainable framework for sports development over the past three years will soon come together. We are close to having a football masterplan and will soon deliver a Sports as business policy which we believe is the only sustainable pathway to a viable sports sector. The events of Tuesday highlight and validate many thrusts of the policy intentions especially grassroots spotting and development of talents. I appeal for the patience of Nigerians and thank the law abiding citizens who have joined their voices to condemn the acts of vandalizarion and who trooped out to support the Super Eagles.”
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58 Comments
So those people that damage those materials and facilities are above the law. Get them out…I think there are cameras around .
Oga Minister, RESIGN!!! You are the architect of our non-qualification. The least sign of remorse acceptable to the SE fans is for you to resign and not come here to preach to the very people whom you and a deadly cabal are grabbing by the throat.
You’ve succeeded in making history for yourself: the sports minister who sacked a performing coach and plunged our soccer into deep crisis.
Politicians think they can get away with any atrocity, but we’ll make sure their names are written down in red.
No institution or individual is resigning. What will be done is to engage everyone in the process of rebuilding our sporting activities.
Not with these clowns in office. Did you hear how we was talking down at Rohr live on TV? Rude and a bloody lout
You the sports minister/Amaju Pinnick and the NFF should resign. That is what Nigerians are asking for.
We need our ex players to replace you people. Enough is enough.
You said in “sports”, “Nothing is 100% certain”. Lies. Cameroon and Senegal lost their world cup qualifiers first leg and both teams made it to Qatar now. You don’t get it Mr. Sports minister.
You, Amaju Pinnick and the rest of the NFF members doesn’t know anything about football. For this reason, you people have to go. We are making the protest already. Nigerians have been insulting Amaju since yesterday.
Nigerians are asking him and his people to go. Amaju is the root of Nigeria problem. He never hired a good coach for Nigeria. Starting from Oga Rohr/Agu, both coaches were not good enough and now coach Eguavoen/Agu, still, Super Eagles failed. Etoo is doing a fantastic job for Cameroon and Cameroon made it to world Cup in his first attempt.
We won’t stop protesting until we achieve our goal. We have so many ex players that capable to replace you people. You people must goooo. Shikena. God bless Nigeria!!!
He said SE will beat the shit out of Ghana. Now he’s saying nothing is 100% certain in sports. He’s being a typical politician. Hope he learns from this and understands that football will humble you if you run your mouth too much. Of course I agree with him that vandalism is not the way to go. Those who took part in that barbaric act should be ashamed. We don’t need that in African football.
Yes we don’t need that but to you Ghanaians we need juju and burying of fetish objects in stadia
God punish you devil thunder strike you
Omo9ja you will never go unpublished this pain you brought here, you will pay it with what you love most bet.were is ur group they’ve burial their head in shame, you shall remain in shame till you die.God punis you and amaju,Sports Minister Sunday Dare
@omo Naija . You are part of those fans that pushed the destructive button with your one dimensional directional brain that our local should take the lead. Now you have started calling on ex footballers to come and take over football development . Shit . Please i beg you keep your mouth and ideas out of the solution. Must ex footballers take part in development before proper developments can take place ,how many ex players are running football in England and Germany? Please answer me? Are you learned at all ? Did you pass through the walls of university if i may ask? How many of our ex players are really educated to take part in building football development in Nigeria . Okocha is not educated so also is Kanu, Yobo no sound intelligently so who can take over. You lost your respect with me the day Nigeria was beaten and you never deem it fit to render apology just like Picknick and Minister dare . Please pls pls keep your mouth shut on the way forward . You are just tribalistic in concluding that only ex players can run football development successful. We need expert that are business conscious that can make money from developing football. That is what we need . Are ex musicians the ones piloting music in Nigeria tell me omonaija?
Another thing i noticed about Nigeria players is pride and laziness. I will be supporting Senegal in the World Cup Senegalese players are so humble and they play for each other on the field but Nigeria players are always eager to dribble . That is why you see more of Senegalese playing in better clubs in Europe . Our players are after money and not ambitious .
I used to be one of the few that believe in your philosophy and i attack fans like @monkeypost and the likes with aggression but now i see you are misfit so please shut up and never mention ex footballers again.
Ex footballers that are calling onTinubu to run for election . NONESENSE
Is this not HYPOCRISY at it’s peak?
Whats the difference between YOU and OMO9JA?
Sebi you hail the appointment of EGUAVON because na your TOWN’S MAN?
Maybe you are one of those benefitting from the destruction of our football by politicians, if not you wouldn’t have come here to condemn all explayers as uneducated and not good enough to handle our football. Haba, Peter Rufai is well educated, one of our explayers was at chelsea as a director, Chief Adokie is a lawyer, Chief Odegbami is an engineer turned sports Administrator. Tell me anyone from the minister to Nff President who is better schooled, knowledgeable and experienced than Chief Odegbami yet our politicians who knows nothing about football relegated him and others to the dustbin of football in Nigeria. There was a time the politicians claimed he was not qualified to run for the office of then NFA chairman. There are many of our retired footballers that are well qualified to lead our football even our entire sports administration in Nigeria. Besides, you do not need to be a graduate to become a good sports adminitsrator after all one can run for the office of the President of Nigeria with a high school leaving certificate. See where all the graduates or co called educated people have taken our football to, they destroyed the developmental structure we had from independence and left a whole country of over 200M people with not structure, not even a plan for grassroot development of our football and other sports in Nigeria. It is a shame that we as a country cannot organise football competitions from primary school to university or all higher institutions level that can throw up talents year after year. All the ministers of sports since the beginning of our second republic, all the commissioners of sports and all the Nff Presidents(NFA CHAIRMEN) plus football association chairmen accross the length and breadth of the country should all bury their heads in shame for bringing our football to disrepute. Unless we go back to grassroot development of our football
Are you for real, the same Segun Odegbami that was promoting a Joseph Yobo to lead the SE to the world cup is intelligent enough to lead the NFF, like seriously. Someone who played the game and feel that you one don’t need a coaching license or certificate to coach a team will be a monumental failure if he ever take over the matter of football leadership.
The people that run football in Germany are former footballers however the difference between them and our former footballers is the fact that ours are not educated and do not possess the intelligence and organizational skills to successfully run our football that’s the reason they sit around and watch those incompetent idiots ruin our football.
You asked the right question here,
“How many of our ex players are really educated to take part in building football development in Nigeria”
Well spoken @RESPECT IS RECIPROCAL
I wish you all the same and back to sender.
Going by what Oga Rohr played in his last two matches, he would failed us like our own did.
Oga Rohr wasn’t good enough. Our own deserved to be fired. So, what is my fault in this?
Oga Rohr brought back Akpeyi, John Noble and Ighalo while our own did the same so, what is the difference?
You can see now that back to sender is the word I can use for you betrayals.
You should be ashamed yourselves you group of people shio. I wish you all the same and back to sender. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
Omo9ja is the word shame and remorse none existence in your dictionary. Boy hide your head in shame you are a disgrace. You should be man enough to own up to your big time blunder but no you run away which shows how small you are. Rubbish with ingredients
Omuti Agbekpoo Oshi
The last time I checked, we were on top of our qualifying group before “Oga Rohr’s” last 2 games and remained on top of our qualifying group after “Oga Rohr’s” last 2 games to once again successfully achieve another qualification.
Rohr must be the reason we failed twice in 3 months after he was sacked, with the same team we have used to successfully execute 5 major assignments in his 6 year tenure….LMAOOooo???
Kaa da fun awon babanla re lae.
I read a comment by some moronic fool in this forum accusing Rhor of working with the Ghanaians to defeat Nigeria and I was like “what a pathetic idiot”.
Gernot Rhor would not have lost those matches to Ghana and tunisia I tell you the truth.If we don’t leave insincerity,tribalism,nepotism,corruption and reasonings based on religion we will not get anywhere
How sure are about that. Rohr was already a disaster waiting ti happen with his lacklustre performances. There was abosolutely no guaranty he would have done any better. Nff did him a favour by helping him to dodge a bullet
Eguavouen was already a disaster before he was brought in.
Rohr hardly loses matches. That is a fact! Especially when it is a key game.
Sir which ex players are you referring too? Please sir don’t start To the best of my knowledge non of
Our ex players are qualified for the administrative job. The only qualified administrator we can have is seyi olofinjana who went to school and graduated to be a sports administrator. Mike Emenalo is another qualified one but will the crooks Employ them ? It’s a capital No sir . Hence we should do away with these so called ex this and ex that as they all have failed woefully. On Gernot Rohr I am not saying his super good but he would have won the game and that’s a fact . Haven said this sir it’s nigh best the Nff and the minister who wanted Nigerian coach should resign then pinnick and his cabinet at the glass house too should resign
Thor was good
@Omo9ja, yeye dey smell. There are some words to describe what you’re currently saying compared to what you said in the past and the insult you rained on people who disagreed with your call for the disengagement of Rhor’s services three weeks to AFCON, and you’re claim that anyone(coach) can win the Nation’s cup with the players we have in the Eagles, you rather loose with “our own” than win with a foreigner. “XENOPHOBIC HYPOCRITE”
You got what you wanted and advocated for, you lost with “our own” so why blowing a fuse?
It’s understandable that individuals have various degree of anger but to start vandalizing and destroying facilities whether private or public is very bad. I have told this forum we must kick against it and even the usage of gutter language.
Thank you @Mr. Sunday Dare. I fully align with the position of the Ministry of Sports that better days are ahead for Nigerian football but only if we make the necessary changes. And that we need to rebrand our football and return to the grassroot and youth football culture of the past. That’s all we need.
I personally have always supported another astute commenter on this platform, Mr. Pius Obemhen on the need to take a drastic and urgent look at the Belgium BluePrint which to many sane minds is editing, lasting and 100% grinds out good results.
I’m a Nigerian though based oversea and I can’t see where anyone failed, it was just unfortunate. It depends on how some others are seeing it, I see this 1-all score draw defeat as a blessing in disguise.
NFF could seize the opportunity to work out a 4 years rigorous grassroots development that will involve organizing football competitions at the district levels, secondary schools in order to catch them young, at the universities and naturally at the local club sides. In all so far, I like Oseodion’s comment.
Warren, I would like them Eguavoen, Amuneke, Yusuf, Yobo, Aigbogun and Alloys to be instructed to get players from every nook and cranny in the country. It is not everytime they have to be going to Europe and America for foreign based. We need a homegrown arrangements more than ever.
@Suleimon, Only an individual who is deaf, dumb and blind would make such a catastrophic suggestion. At the present time that would mean going from frying pan not just to fire but to hell where the devastation will be eternal.
Sometimes in crisis, it is just good to shut up.
Mr Warren…really..you dont see where anyone failed…i dont know where to star exposing this failure to you..
1. Let me start with the Ministry failure for appointing Mr Eguavoen who has no credible and quality Cv to be a technical director..let alone getting a job as a SE coach.
please browse and check the CV of Otto Addo and Chris Houghton of Ghana respectively and experience wise…that is the beginning of that failure you didnt see. Otto Addo is the Assistant Coach of Borussia Dortmund a top club in Europe..the other is a Seasoned ex premier league coach
2. Another failure you didnt or refused to see is the tactics of the coach. U have a better coach in Rohr than Eguavoen all round and you sacked him..instead of moving the team higher with Jose perreira..u opted for a tried and tested coachwith a history of failures. maybe this one is also not a failure abi
3. another failure is when you have a lot of attacking players you invited for the qualifiers and you played only a lone striker when you should have used two when you needed goals.
i could go on and on bro
How many times would they have a four year plan and how many times has that failed?
According to your comment, you did not see failure in anyone’s part that
means you consider it the right move to fire a hard working
and dedicated coach who met all NFF set targets, replace him with someone without a clue who’s only qualification is the fact that he’s Nigerian, at a time there was just three weeks to a major tournament?
I do not see that opportunity you’re talking about, the only opportunities I see are the ones already lost that can’t be redeemed.
Excellent response. And i like the idea of introducing the Belgian blue book. A similar idea is being practiced by the USA FA in Florida and so far so good, the process does work. Enough of always going outside the country to beg or bring players that are just average to execute our games. There should be some blending of pro and home-based in my opinion and that was what keshi was trying to do, until he was forced out.
Where are the home-based players going to be pulled from, NPFL, NNL,Higher Institutions or Secondary schools?
That is not realistic.
Belgium has a system that works. Has a league that functions properly, has a Federation that knows what time it is, has a sports ministry that promote all sports not one that controls and dictates to the Football Federation on where players for National assignment should come from, who dictates to whom to fire and who to hire .
Nigeria league if not the worst, is one of the worst in the continent. There’s no way the Belgium blue print will work in Nigeria with the current state of Football structure in our country.
Apology accepted but should have been communicated sooner. Its only morons that will fault the efforts you kept in place for a successful outing. What else do they expect you to do, dress up and come and score the goals needed. They just not ready to accept the truth, but keep on channeling the lackluster performance by the player. They are the ones that let Nigerians done. Not you, the coaches but the players on the field. They are the ones kicking the ball.They need to ask themselves about there performance on the field. Better still go back and re-watch the match to access there performance
Please take your time to address the issues with the team going forward, for me kee the coaching crew. Give them more time to unearth new hungry players who have the interest of the country at heart
Our SPOKESPERSON well done!
We are angry and you are here indirectly using this opportunity to campaign again, oga why ? We are asking that you , Picnic and Eguavoen should resign immediately no amount of apologies accepted can correct your incompetence.
GA @Oseodion Inegbenebor, what is the Belgium blueprint all about?
oga Minister of sport keep your apology and resign. All the fans are saying the sport minister including the NFF Chairman and coach crew have fail. Why is it always difficult for Nigerians to resign after fail woeful like other countries.
Hahahaha….I never knew Sunday Dare can be so humble.
Please when are you going to host the team to another dinner like the one you hosted for their impressive failure at AFCON…?
We couldn’t reach the qfinals of AFCON for the 1st time in 40years with a team many as at November 2021 agreed should win the cup, specialists in failure went on to host a party rather than wear sacked clothes and cover themselves in Ashes.
They said it was an impressive outing…. LMAOOO. I hope this world cup elimination too was an impressive elimination….LMao.
Please when are you going to make your local content coaches appointments permanent so that we can quickly start preparing to miss 2023 and 2025 Afcons too….. LMAOOO
So this man hasn’t resign,am just waiting to read that this man and his people has resigned,
“Rohr no good Rohr no good” we qualified for world cup and reach the semifinal of afcon now that the good coaches are in charge everything get as e be. I’m sad Nigeria didn’t qualify but I think it’s fair to say that Rohr has been vindicated
Nigeria didn’t really give everything to qualify unlike Ghana that did everything possible,both off and on the field politics and even used juju and I suspect the Ghanian to have hand in the death of Zambian official cos he died when he was about to test the Ghanian players for doping…
Many things need to be Check really we never can tell, NFA should assign some delegate to scrutinize those Ghanaian new players if there switch of nationality has been completed and approve by FIFA.
@Femi that’s called “medicine after death”
You are a failure, Mr. Dare. A total failure. You have failed woefully. Under your tenure, we have not been able to qualify or make progress in any tournament. Notable among your failures are… World Cup, AFCON, Olympics, amongst others.
The tenure of the last minister of sports was a lot better. We achieved so much under him.
Instead of resigning, you are talking about rebuilding and repositioning SE. Something you couldn’t do in four years, is it now that you have about 7-months to go that you will achieve that.
As long as you are still on that seat, nothing will work because you don’t really have the acumen needed to reposition the Sports sector. I don’t blame you. Rather I blame the current government that politicizes everything. If it were a government that knows its left from right, you would have been queried and called to order with the rate of failures in sports since you took change.
I don’t have any doubt, because of the kind of government we have now, nobody will sack you, and you don’t have the integrity to resign after the overwhelming failure.
I want you to know that nobody has faith in you. You are a failure. Failure is your new name
Failure had always being his name but it was unknown to us. He was the one that insisted that Super Eagles must engage a local coach.
He started his overbearing attitude on the NFF/Super Eagles and was dictating every step.
The local coaches he wanted,what was their pedigree. Or are we just employing them because they are ex footballers or have been successful in age grade competitions.
What have the local coaches achieved for Nigerian clubsides at the continental level?
We have numerous ex sporting personnel all around the country and non of them could occupy the ” Minister of Sport ” Office ? . And many capable former football players are all around us and still a novice to the game is the NFF President, so what do you expect ? If a degree holder in Agricultural Science is sitting in the Police Commissioner’s office, what do you expect ?
Up till now the Ministry of Sports still has neither a policy nor a blueprint for Sports development in Nigeria. It should never have been meddling in professional football far enough to order the hiring and firing of national team coaches All they know at this irrelevant ministry is foreign trips, speech-making, champagne and parties. Sunday Dare, Segun Odegbami and Amaju Pinnick are jointly responsible for the disgrace, physically, politically and emotionally suffered by Nigeria last Tuesday. The country needs a new beginning and fresh faces in sports administration These men should go somewhere, sit in a toilet and shut up.
He is not talking about the influence he exerted to push Rohr out.
All we are saying is, RESIGNE, Mr failed Minister. Mr failed NFF President, RESIGNE today. Omo9ja, nobody wants to hear your opinion right now. You campaigned for a considerable length of time to terminate the services of the former Coach even when it was only 2 weeks to AFCON and now, what have we got? Disappointments and regrets. Rohr is laughing after he collected 2 million dollars as well. You advocated the concepts of “lets fail with our own” . Indeed.
The fact that the Minister for Sports has up till now not tendered his resignation actually shows that the Federal Government of Nigeria does not know that such a ministry exists.
Egypt and Algeria have appeal to FIFA for a replay, I think we can do same using the eligibility of almost 6 new players that switch nationality between January AFCON and March and play for Ghana, i reason with one of @pempeo write up this is worth scrutinizing and we never can tell some shady stuff might unfold, NFA should give a try and dig deep.
This Dare is an idiotic fool. He succeeded in plan to derail Super Eagles Nation’s cup and world cup plans with his xenophobic and hate campaign against Rhor with comments that “Rhor was discriminating Nigerian players in favor of foreigners”. He got what he wanted, why pretend now ?
That clueless moron Segun Odegbami has gone mute since after the results of his devilish plans against Nigerian football progress was achieved.
Odegbami showed us that he’s a bigot who’s clueless about football although he was a footballers himself.
Useless Sports Minister. Rude, lousy, unpolished, and foolish. Leaders of men should always be the wise ones with a great sense of humility and service. This man is non of that.it is only in Nigeria that these kinds of people hold any meaningful position. That is why Nigerian leadership does not reflect the people they lead. Especially this generation.