Nigeria’s W’Cup hopes suffering since I left office – Dalung

The former Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung, has lamented the poor outing of Nigeria’s Super Eagles at the ongoing World Cup qualifiers.

He heaped the blame on the poor sports management and administration.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen on Wednesday at the Palace of the Emir of Ilorin in Ilorin, Kwara State, where he joined many chieftains of the Social Democratic Party on a courtesy visit, Dalung regretted that since he left office six years ago, the nation’s football team has continued to nosedive into irrelevance.

According to Dalung, the World Cup qualifiers have continued to discourage desired support from the fans and supporters.

“The World Cup qualifier of the Super Eagles has suffered greatly in the past six years since I left office.

“The only time Nigeria qualified was in 2018 and we qualified historically with a match to spare since then Nigeria had not been able to make it to the World Cup,” he said.

Ruling out the livelihood of the team reviving its age-long image, Dalung said, “From the way the current campaign is going on, with the match against Rwanda I had hope that Nigeria would get back on track and move onwards on the table but the last match against Zimbabwe had dashed the hope of Super Eagles to fly the flag of Nigeria at the next World Cup.”

He however hinted that the hope may not have been entirely lost.

“Except par-adventure something extraordinary takes place,” he added.

He identified a lack of leadership commitment to the sector as a major factor hindering the growth of football and general sports in the country.

“The problem of sports is lack of committed leadership to sports administration.

“You see, as a sports minister, you have to redefine what you intend to achieve. What has been responsible for this entire thing is that we don’t have a determined leadership to lead the force in the right direction.

“What has contributed to this is that we have so many summersault of policies and changes of leadership. Before now, there was a Ministry of Sports but it has now been disbanded and handed over to the National Sports Commission which is more a technical organ of sports so, the political will to drive sports is not there. Who is sitting at the Federal Executive Council to drive the policy of sports is not there.

“The void created by the abolition of the Ministry of Sports is one of the major factors. Even if we have the best coach in the world, he needs a political will to inspire the players, mobilise Nigerians and drag us to victory, which is missing in the current set-up.

“Regrettably, our hope has been dashed because the loss to Zimbabwe has brought us back to where we were,” he lamented.