₦airaland Forum

Icon79:
The entire BBC public voting thing was a scam. They didn't rely on the online voting in making their selection, trust me on that one. If they did, VicMo would've won it handily.


O pari

What is your proof?

junnyjake:
That's what you get when people who are in position mess up and all they expect to get in a form of a reprimand is just a slap on the wrist.

How can some one or a group of people forget something as important and as bulky as a group of passports for about 20 people?

They left Lagos to Ibadan just to go watch match and forgot something as vital as passports.

After winning the maiden Meridian cup the careers of that talented generation hit the rocks, which was a huge lose to Nigeria, because of the carelessness of a bunch of people.

Dedebanky85:
I'm hearing that Nigeria is playing Poland in Marchkudos to NFF. But please, NFF should ensure we have a 2nd game in that March window. Most teams are playing 2 games. Even non-worldcup bound teams are playing 2 friendlies. How much more a WC bound team. We could use that avenue to play against either, Denmark, Norway or Finland. I hear Lagerback is now coach of Norway and you know he moulded the core basics of the Icelandic team. I believe we can quickly get Norway to play in March. Not every time big team.

Two games have been planned for now.

One confirmed (Poland)

The second game is in the pipeline.

junnyjake:
FIFA SANCTION: 5 Other Times NFF’s Negligence Embarrassed Nigeria

By Kayode Ogundare :

News broke late Tuesday that the Federation of International Football federation (FIFA) had wielded the big stick to sanction Nigeria by voiding the Super Eagles’ hard-earned one point from the last 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying game against Algeria in Constantine last October.


FIFA’s grouse was that Nigeria fielded an ineligible Shehu Abdulahi who had copped two yellow cards in the games against Swaziland away in November 2015 and in Uyo against Zambia last October. By FIFA rules he was supposed to have missed the game against Algeria but through the negligence of some officials who should have spotted and alerted the coaching crew, he went on to play the full 90 minutes in the ultimately meaningless tie against Algeria, a 1-1 draw that has now been awarded as a 3-0 win to the North Africans.


Completesportsnigeria.com trails and presents five other times that the negligence of the NFF had caused Nigeria embarrassment and, in some cases, lengthy bans from the game of football.


1. South African Matchballs debacle 2017
The opening day AFCON 2019 qualification game against South Africa in Uyo last June resulted in a 2-0 defeat for the Super Eagles against all expectations. However, the news out of the home loss was the information that filtered out after the game that the matchday balls used for the game actually belonged to the South Africans as the NFF could not provide the balls to be used for the game.
South Africa branded their balls with a red marker before allowing them to be used for the match.

Apparently, the players had been training with the wrong set of balls which were different from the FIFA-approved ones for the game as the NFF were said to be too broke to take delivery of the balls sent by FIFA.
Whether this was enough excuse to have lost the game to South Africa or not, the fact remained that somebody neglected to do his job and it cost Nigeria not just three points but also caused us international embarrassment.


2. Golden Eaglets passport scandal 1997
After failing to go beyond the quarter-final stages at the 1995 FIFA U-17 World Cup in 1995, the NFF mandated coach Fanny Amu to put together a crack squad for the 1997 edition which would be capable of redeeming Nigeria’s image in age-grade competition and win again the cadet cup which we had won twice previously in 1985 and 1993.


However, in the team’s first competitive African Youth Championship qualifier against Benin Republic at the Liberty Stadium (now Obafemi Awolowo Stadium) Ibadan in 1996, it was discovered that the NFF had forgotten the players’ passport in Lagos!
Muyiwa Lawal, in 3SC colours here, was one of the Golden Eaglets of 1997 set which won the Meridien Cup in Portugal
The Beninoise, sensing a backyard victory over their more illustrious neighbours, refused to start the game despite assurances that somebody would be dispatched to Lagos to bring the passports before the end of the game. They protested to CAF which upheld their protest and kicked out the Golden Eaglets from the qualifiers without kicking a ball.

A glimpse of how good that generation of young players which included Ejike Izuagha, Muyiwa Lawal, Hashimu Garba etal was seen at the 1997 UEFA-CAF Meridian Cup where they beat Spain 3-2 in the final of the friendly invitational tournament in Portugal.
Again, we would never know if that squad would have won the World U-17 title in Egypt which Brazil won after a 2-1 victory over Ghana.


3. Forgotten shorts 1991
On July 27th, 1991, Nigeria’s Super Eagles were billed to play the Stallions of Burkina Faso in the last game of the qualification race to the 1992 AFCON. The national stadium Surulere was already packed to the rafters with an enthusiastic of fans who’d come to witness how the Burkinabes would be slaughtered.

The Super Eagles at Senegal ’92
Both set of players were in their respective dressing rooms and Nigeria manager was rounding off a quick last-minute strategy session when somebody raised the alarm that the Super Eagles kits were missing. Somebody forgot to bring them from the team’s camp in Otta, some 25-minutes drive away from Lagos. It was just five minutes to kick-off and nothing was going to stop the match referee, Guinea’s Karim Camara from going ahead with the game. Except, probably, a walk-over for the home team.

According to former Super Eagles defender Rueben Agboola who was on the starting line-up, the referee was about to call the game off when someone suggested that they cut off the tracksuit bottoms and use as shorts. A scissors was quickly found and the players emerged from the dug-out with knee-length shorts.

It was an amusing sight seeing the Super Eagles players chasing down balls in ridiculous-looking shorts but, fortunately, that didn’t stop the players from winning handsomely with a 7-1 annihilation of their opponents.


4. Banned from age-grade competitions 1989
In 1989, FIFA placed a two year ban on Nigeria from participating in FIFA age-grade tournaments and also withdrew the country’s right to host the 1991 World Youth Championship.
Captain Samson Siasia leading the Super Eagles out for a match was one of the players involved in the 1989 ban


The infraction for which Nigeria was banned was the alleged falsification of the ages of three players, Andrew Uwe, Samson Siasia and Dahiru Sadi.
The trio had featured for Nigeria in the U-20 World Cups of Mexico ’83 and Moscow ’85 and had altered their ages to participate in the Seoul ’88 Olympics.

FIFA had condemned this negligence on the part of the then NFA but the two-year ban of 1989 ensured a 10-year absence for the Flying Eagles at the FIFA U-20 World Cup as they couldn’t qualify until Nigeria hosted the world in 1999.


5. Obafemi Martins’ age mix-up 2005
In 2005, in the heat of the qualification race to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the NFA put itself, and Nigeria, up for public ridicule by feeding false information to the world which threatened the career of striker Obafemi Martins, then playing for Italian giants Inter Milan. The NFA put Obafemi Martins at the centre of an age dispute by stating falsely, on the website, that the player was born on May 1, 1978 instead of the authentic date of October 28, 1984.


This negligence embarrassed Martins who was branded an age cheat and affirmed the stereotype about Nigeria being a country of criminals. The player was so infuriated that he vowed never to play for the country again. While he rescinded his decision, Nigeria ultimately failed to make it to the World Cup of that year.

On the same website, since yanked off, the NFA claimed that former midfielder Seyi Olofinjana made his national team debut on June 12, 1980, two years before he was born on November 15, 1982!

Nigerians will heave a sigh of relief that this latest sanction did not cost the nation more than international embarrassment but hope that the NFF president Amaju Pinick will live up to his promise to fish out and punish the negligent staff responsible for this international ridicule.

Onlinenigeria

That issue of forgetting of passport for that U17 qualifiers was so pathetic. As even the players were seen pleading with the Beninoise officials who were playing deaf and dumb.

They knew the rules and capitalised on it instantly. If reverse was the case I know Nigeria would have ignorantly gone ahead with the game only for FIFA to write to us that Benin has been disqualified without us even knowing they violated any rule in the first place

That Shehu's case is what u get when you put people who are not thorough in sensitive positions.

goldfish80:
Rohr said recently that the initial list of players to be called will be about 35. There's no way an outstanding outfield player in CHAN won't make the final 35.

Possible.

One notable error by the NFF in the past:

1992 AFCON qualifiers, Nigeria vs Burkina Faso: The Super Eagles had arrived match venue only to find out they were without their proper jerseys. It was almost kick off time. They only had their top jersey and track suits trousers of which they got an emergency tailor to cut the trousers to shorts right their in the dressing room. The proper jerseys (shorts) arrived before the commencement of the second half. We scored 5 goals in that second half with the proper jerseys.
Nigeria won that game 7-1.

One notable error by the NFF in the past:

1992 AFCON qualifiers, Nigeria vs Burkina Faso: The Super Eagles had arrived match venue only to find out they were without their proper jerseys. It was almost kick off time. They only had their top jerseys and track suits which they got an emergency tailor to cut the trousers to shorts right their in the dressing room. The proper jerseys arrived before the commencement of the second half. We scored 5 goals in that second half with the proper jerseys.
Nigeria won that game 7-1.

Apology from Pinnick accepted.
Proper mechanisms should be put in place to avoid future similar occurrences.

goldfish80:
Ordinarily we shouldn't have a problem getting out of this group. Being a world cup year, the players are extra motivated to do well and gatecrash into the final 35 man list for the main team.
In 2014 we saw our CHAN team play some scintillating football and got bronze for their efforts. Our ranking will get unprecedented boost if this team could replicate the achievement of the 2014 team.
My only reservation is the inactivity of npfl players since the league won't be starting till January.

I do sincerely hope they will boost the ranking and not do a further damage.

On the prospects of players making it to Russia. Sorry I don't think any outfield player stands a chance. At least it is not looking likely. The only players in that tourney that stand the chance are Ezenwa and Ajiboye.

On issue of inactivity, that is not much of a problem because the super6 is ongoing and the CHAN team is one of those participating. Even as the league may not have commenced early in January that will afford the team ample time to camp, play friendlies and perfect their strategies.

goldfish80:
CHAN is a recognised FIFA A level tournament.

Caf President Issa Hayatou told Goal that Fifa is recognising Chan as an official ‘A level’ tournament with ranking points . Hayatou told us that Caf has plans for Chan growing as strong as the Afcon. Igesund himself was delighted to hear that South Africa could benefit from a long Chan campaign and improve our rankings as planned.

http://m.goal.com/s/en-za/news/4622/africa/2014/01/12/4538249/editorial-fifa-is-wrong-to-recognise-chan-for-official

CHAN is a Full 3 POINTER like I suspected earlier.

cc Icon4s

OK.

Back to my point.

It is a more reason why we must not lose or play a draw with any of Libya, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda. These are lowly ranked teams that a slip up in any of the games will further deepen our ranking points. Even with this 3-0 loss to Algeria sef.

Looks like the major positives from that CHAN are to see Ezenwa and probably Ajiboye in action.

realpoacher:
You guys won the last argument concerning FIFA rankings, but your first paragraph is a big lie.

CHAN is fully accepted by FIFA as Confederation's Regional tournament and its full ranking multiplier is 3.

Hahahaha.

Ok

kennysville:
Oga! I am not you and you are not me. Please respect that!
Dont be so rash and condescending when speaking. I respect your views, and i suggest u do the same to mine. Thank you

Sorry if that hit you hard.

I was really pissed by those NFF guys.
In fact I am still pissed.

The technical staff just ASSUMED that the yellow card will not count after the preliminary stage.

Meaning they were aware but just assumed.
It was a one month period between the Zambia and Algeria game. Couldn't they have written to FIFA to confirm or verify?

krattoss:
7 reasons why Nigeria was sanctioned


The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Was Sanctioned For Fielding An Ineligible Player In The Match Between Algeria And Nigeria On 10 November 2017 World Cup Qualifier.

Reasons Why Nigeria Was Sanctioned In The World Cup Qualifier

1. ABDULAHI SHEHU got yellow card right from first match (preliminary rounds) of the qualifiers against Swaziland in Swaziland.

2. When the draws for group stage were made the technical staff assumed the cards from preliminaries would not count going forward and didn’t take proper records. Indeed throughout the qualifying series Adullahi Shehu has never been counted as being on yellow even by the match documents such as when we played Cameroon Mikel, Moses and Balogun were all put on notice they are on a yellow and so there was even a meeting before the game how to make their yellow cards so as not to miss the decisive next match but Abdullahi Shehu was never in the mix…

3. Abdullahi got yellow card from the penultimate match against Zambia which is two years since the first match where he got the first Yellow (note we played the preliminary rounds against Swaziland in November 2015 under Sunder Oliseh and played the Zambia match in November 2017).

4. FIFA sent notice after the match against Zambia that Shehu is suspended for Algeria match but sent the email directly to the technical officer in charge, whom incidentally was hospitalized at that period with a serious heart problem so was not on emails and couldn’t have seen it.

5. On match day against Algeria neither the match Commissioner was aware nor the away team and ABDULAHI played the match without any protest or notice from either side.

6. Algerian never protested as they too are not aware but FIFA sent NFF a query to ask why the player played. NFF duly responded with proofs that the notice was sent to an email account of a technical staff that was Hospitalized with proofs. The FIFA disciplinary committee met and decided since previous emails has always been sent to same account and were taking so the notice is valid and sanctioned Nigeria..

7. Yes it’s a really a bad mistake but thank God it’s not costly and NFF is already reorganizing the Technical and Competitions departments to ensure this horrendous mistake never happened again, as this mistake is clearly the lack of delingence of the Technical department and the Competitions departments…


https://brookinfo.com/world-cup-qualifier-7-reasons-why-nigerian-was-sanctioned/

I knew the point 2 was the case. "The technical staff just assumed.....". Assumption without making any efforts to verify?

Humility017:
I still remember how you reminded me...that fielding almost all this players that have been on bench all this while could cost us the match....

and opt for few introductions....
anyway that has passed....I just thank God it all ended this way...it could have been worse

Na-na-na, cost us the match?

If only you can go back and dig up my preferred starting 11.

Humility017:
I tell you....I remember that day how oga icon and his crew jump to defend rohr for benching ebuehi...

even when everyone here was citing reasons why the young man should have played instead so as to better assess him.....

but oga rohr unwilling to take risk...still went ahead field shehu and that almost cost us the world cup.....
mtcheeew ....

I wanted Ebuehi to start that game. I included him in my preferred starting line up.

But we cannot hinge on that now to blame Rohr

NFF has once again reminded us of who they are.

Ormorlehwah:
Ibefun, Ijebu, Ogun St . Hmmmmmmmmm......... My hometown Omo Ibefun Orunfe lolo

Congrats, una don turn Oil company host community.

tbaba1234:
See, People get fired for less.
This is a serious error and should be tackled seriously

They probably do not understand the magnitude of this type of error.

Kmartt:
Ibefun

Yeah, thanks

Just found out.

Property investors oya, it is a New dawn.

atmy1:
Petrolex mega oil city launch happening at the site. Present are several dignitaries including Obasanjo, osinbajo, Ajimobi, kachikwu, oni of ife, oba of lagos, obi of onitsha, samuel ortom etc

Which Town in Ogun is the site located?

BascoVanVeli:
because they made an error. Oya carry ur AK47 and go and kill them.

Continue defending mediocrity.

mummyson26:
First time to comment on this thread
Abeg I won ask small pinkin question oo
Assuming FIFA later find out that Algerian also feeded an illegible player in that same match what will happen to both team?

Hahaha a good one.

Maybe both teams will forfeit the points.

Asin the match never held.

Mybettingtips:
Our World cup unbeaten run since 2006......gosh

Our beaten run against Algeria since 1990 gone!
Last time we lost a competitive game against an African team by more than 2 goal Margin was in 1990. That one too gone!

We dropped 9 positions by drawing Algeria. Now it is a loss. By the time the Ranking calculation is adjusted your guess is a good as mine.

kennysville:
My point exactly. Striving for excellence is key. Imagine if we had drawn the matches against Zambia and only needes the draw against Algeria to qualify.

You cannot be striving for excellence and be giving excuses for Mediocrity. They don't go hand in hand.

BascoVanVeli:
It is called sportsmanship, there was nothing on the line.

Sportsmanship?

Algerian FA will call Pinnick and tell him not to field Shehu that he is on a yellow card?

If the Algerian FA can be aware why can't our own FA be aware?

Quit defending those guys cos the more you defend them the more annoying this blunder becomes.

Humility017:
is it the duty of the NFF Secretary or the role of technical committee to keep records of this kind?
that technical committee problem is that they don't know their jobs..made up of ex-internationals only concerned wit trying to squeeze their players into the national team.

What I suspect would have happened is they probably were aware of Shehu's yellow card against Swaziland but lazily assumed that it would be wiped off automatically as we progress to the next round.

They probably didn't go the extra mile to find out the FIFA rule concerning that in this particular tournament.

Just like a lot of people were talking about head to head being used as a qualifying criterion prior to the Zambia game in Uyo (including Peterside Idah). Meanwhile for this particular edition of qualifiers it is goals difference.

There must be people in the technical committee whose job it is to read and interpret these FIFA rules.

tbaba1234:
Nigerians make excuses for incompetence. There are no excuses for this error. It is way too costly.. I hope a serious reorganization is carried out.

I tell you bro.

How can we achieve greatness as a nation when we see incompetence as a normal thing. That nobody is above mistake.

Humility017:
you're right. I pray something good stems from it.

I just pray....Zambia don't go further do an investigation and come out wit something funny....
I will just faint......

Zambia are now just 3 points away. Trust that this night they will start their own investigations.

The records would now be Algeria 3-0 Nigeria!
And some say it doesn't matter that nobody is above mistake. Gushh....it could have been worse. What if Shehu had collected that second Yellow against Cameroon in Younde? It means it would have been that crucial Zambia game in Uyo that we would have forfeited 3-0 to Zambia! God forbid.

Humility017:
how about yusuf who was the assistant coach during oliseh time too?

the problem wit the nff that keep hiring people who know not their job role......

So as they changed coach they changed all the technical committee members and they went away with all records?

tbaba1234:
NFF response:

“We accept the decision of the FIFA Disciplinary C'ttee to fine the NFF and award the match to Algeria. “At the same time, I want to assure that persons responsible for this slip would not be given just a slap on the wrist. We are actually looking at a re-organization of the Technical Department. The Technical C'ttee will henceforth play serious superintending role on all details, no matter how minute, in technical matters. “It is important that all committees and depts at the NFF should move at the same pace as the Executive C'ttee,”

This is a serious dent on the reputation of the NFF. They need to take decisive steps to regain confidence from stake holders.

tbaba1234:
People who make mistake at work are reprimanded. That is how Life is... If not by an outright sack, a fine or suspension. It does not negate the good that NFF has done.

In fact the NFF should even retain their reputation by taking a very decisive action against the guilty party(ies).

Its like we don't understand the gravity of the mistake.

BascoVanVeli:
Which kind due diligence, why not tell us about this instead of playing us while banking on technicalities if things go wrong. Would they have reported if they had won 4-0? There was nothing at stake.

They should have told you about this?

It is like you do not understand the gravity of what has just happened?

krattoss:
anything could have caused that complacency. ..their is no need of ridiculing a board that has been doing outrightly right from its inception. ..

That means any person that makes any mistake in its field should be treated the same and just take urself as a case study if u fall under this scenario...

For me I say...learn from the mistake and move on since nothing is at stake....

U could as well call for Escobar treatment to akpeyi had it been his blunder against Argentina was a deciding game...

Sometimes best decisions arnt made under greviance and anger

The NFF have already stated on their Twitter account that a disciplinary action would be taken after a thorough investigation.

This complacency is too expensive.