Former Super Eagles striker Jonathan Akpoborie, in this interview with Satutday Telegraph’s AJIBADE OLUSESAN at Ikoyi Golf Club, Lagos, expressed his disappointment over Nigeria’s likely absence from a second straight World Cup, citing poor organisation by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) as the main cause. Excerpts:
After stepping away from football, tell us about your new passion for golf?
I’ve been playing golf for some time now, I do that regularly, and I can tell you that this is an interesting sport.
Having played football at the highest level and trying your hand at golf now, what’s the key difference between the two sports?
When you play football, there are times when you might not perform at your best, but your teammates can help you out. But golf is a very different experience.
On a day when you’re not playing well, there’s no one to save you because it’s an individual sport. Even your caddy can’t play the shots for you. Mentally, I believe golf is more challenging than football.
You are one of the top stars in Nigerian football history, and you might be worried that Nigeria may not qualify for the next World Cup coming up in the USA, Mexico and Canada…
It’s outrageous that we are not going to two consecutive World Cups. It’s not just annoying; it’s disgraceful. However, I cannot blame the players even though they have their own shortcomings.
The main issue lies with the organisational aspects of the game, which the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and those involved with the Super Eagles are failing to take responsibility for. If you don’t organise well, you won’t perform well.
We tend to overlook everything related to organisation, including what the players need to do before the game. Most of these boys come from Europe and operate in well-structured systems. So, when they come here and things aren’t organised, you can’t get a good outcome.
They are the main actors; after all, it’s usually 11 vs 11 on the pitch. However, don’t you think these players aren’t performing to their potential despite administrative problems?
I’ll give you an example. The last game we played in South Africa was on Saturday. Can anybody give me a reason why we played on Saturday? The South Africans played on Friday night because they knew that they would play on Tuesday again.
People will say the field was bad, that we were taken there on purpose to make it hard for us. But really, it wasn’t about the field; it was the high altitude. Our players got tired because of the weather and the lack of preparation.
We arrived late. We played our home game on Saturday, but we should have tried to play on Thursday instead. That way, we could have travelled on Friday and given our players at least three days to adjust to the altitude before the game against South Africa.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, we played late, travelled on Sunday, trained on Monday, and played on Tuesday. So when people say the players looked tired in the second half, of course, they were tired.
They didn’t have time to adjust. That’s poor planning. Back when I was a player, we used to arrive a week early to get used to the conditions. Your lungs need time to adapt to the altitude. These things might seem small, but they make a big difference in the end.
Don’t you think we should also have complained about South Africa playing two of Football’ll be buried if not taken away from politicians –Akpoborie their ‘away’ games at home?
Well, that is something the NFF should have challenged. You know, if I were in the NFF, that would never have happened. Because if you actually carry it to FIFA, then they would have organised or approved another neutral ground that Lesotho and co will play their home matches. It is unfair, and I cannot understand why, before the beginning of the qualifiers, the NFF would agree to that.
Former Super Eagles captain Mikel Obi lent his voice to the growing call for the NFF board to be dismissed if Nigeria don’t qualify. What is your take on this?
If a country like Germany doesn’t qualify for the World Cup on two consecutive occasions, we need not tell anybody to resign. All of them will resign on their own, even if it was not due to organisational issues, but Nigeria is different. Honestly, we need to take our football away from politicians.
If we don’t do so, it will continue to drop. It will be dead and buried. Today, what is the state of our league? We have a crowd in Nigeria who actually follow our football. We are over 250 million people in Nigeria.
We only need 10 million people to follow our league if it is well organised. If you do that, then we are turning our football into a business. If you just do half of what the Premier League has done, you will see that we do not need to rely on the government for money.
The Nigerian Premier League should fully embrace the business aspects of football by creating and committing to a well-defined plan. At the moment, I cannot even switch on the TV and say, I want to watch a game in the NPFL.
Is it about the quality of play or that of the pitches?
If I want to tell you the real problem of Nigeria, it will take me the whole day. For instance, most of our league games are played on synthetic turf. If synthetic was very good, FIFA would be playing the World Cup on synthetic pitches. The World Cup is played today on grass.
If synthetic was really good, the Europeans who invested money in their league would be playing on synthetic. Our league is not really organised very well. In the last decade, there was an abridged league, I think about two times.
They practically chose who won the league; that is shameful. Can you imagine a football body asking for the opinion of everybody to pick our national team coach? Who does that? When everybody was shouting at Finidi George that he did not do well, the NFF did not tell everybody that they were the ones who invited the players before they appointed Finidi.
To be honest with you, in the last decade, I saw the Super Eagles play good football while Finidi was handling the Super Eagles. They did not give him enough time. Now, the Malian is here. I have not seen what the Malian has done to deserve handling the Eagles.
Are you suggesting that Finidi should have been left in charge?
He should have been left alone to build the team.
In that situation?
Yes. I just told you he did not invite the players he prosecuted those matches with.
Then who did?
Then, when he did not invite the players, what do you expect him as a coach to do? There was about three or four months’ break before he was named coach. Why do you wait that long? So those are the questions we keep asking everybody.
If the Super Eagles don’t qualify for the World Cup, should Coach Eric Chelle be sacked?
Based on my experience and how football works, I wouldn’t sack him — even if I don’t personally like him. We should wait until after the Nations Cup, then come up with a clear plan and, if needed, bring in a new coach to handle the next World Cup qualifiers. But once we choose that coach, we must fully support him all the way to the World Cup. That’s how football should be run. You said Nigerian football needs to be taken away from politicians. Does that mean former players like you should be in charge? But the truth is, ex-players aren’t getting involved in the politics of the game — and without that, it’s hard to be part of the NFF. Why is that?
Well, that is the problem. For instance, I don’t play politics. I don’t belong to politics. I have left politics for those people who want to play it. I have a lot of experience that I can actually go in there and develop our football, but since Nigeria does not want it, I have been on my own.
I don’t want to fight anybody to go into the NFF. In fact, it is almost impossible for somebody like me to actually win an election because if I try, I will not even be able to get even one vote.
Why do you think so?
Because I am bringing organisations, and that is exactly what I believe they do not want.
So are you advising former players like you not to step in?
We cannot. Based on the constitution of the NFF, we don’t even have representation. That is how useless it is. I am sorry. When you talk about the players’ union, it is actually nonsense.
When Peter Rufai died, I heard so many things about ex-players complaining about neglect. I am here (Ikoyi Golf Club) almost every day.
We have more than 10 insurance directors here. You can sit down with one of them and draw up a deal for the NPFL. Not just the league, but for all the academies in Nigeria, you are building their future, but nobody is doing anything about it.
We have a players’ union that goes everywhere begging for donations when any of us is sick. We don’t need it; we need to build a system. Look at the music industry, at first, everybody was running to politicians for support, but immediately, they left politicians and built their system, look at where our music is now, it’s at the centre of the world, and they are making money.
The problem with the ex-internationals is that we are not together, and I don’t think we can come together, because everybody has their own different roles and ambitions. Some people have actually sold their name to the present NFF, and I can never sit with those people to discuss with them.
