Nigeria’s FIFA Council member who is also the immediate past President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Melvin Pinnick, spoke with DURO IKHAZUAGBE on the just concluded AFCON 2023 and sundry football related matters. Excerpt…
As the highest ranked football personality in Nigeria, how do you feel with the Super Eagles playing the final game of the AFCON 2023?
Football is a continuum. I played my part in the Nigeria Football Federation and allowed others to take charge. I am happy with what the present board led by Ibrahim Gusau has achieved so far. They should take credit for the success of the Super Eagles playing in the final of AFCON 2023 despite the fact that nobody gave the team any chance when the tournament kicked off in January.
But the board you headed brought the Portuguese coach, Jose Peseiro to Nigeria and in addition, you were also involved in getting most of the foreign-born Super Eagles players now at the heart of the team, to switch to Nigeria. Besides, the President, Gusau, was your choice for the NFF top job. Do you feel vindicated?
I don’t want to agree with you that I brought Gusau to the NFF board. He was popular with the NFF congress and got elected to lead the federation just as all the executive committee members won their elections. On Peseiro, I appointed him for Super Eagles and have no regret over his coming to the Nigerian top job. It is also true that I was instrumental to some of the players switching to Nigeria. Ademola Lookman for example, it was hell for us bringing him to Nigeria. There was a lot of politics involved. A lot of intrigues and family dynamism. Same for (Alex) Iwobi. But like I said earlier, football is a continuum. I will not say I brought them because today they are asset to the federation. We also have liabilities like the federation owing so many of our vendors that we couldn’t pay before leaving office. So, if you are talking about the asset from a previous administration at the NFF, you also must remember to add the liabilities. So it is not the case of starting and ending with Amaju Pinnick. Football administration is a continuum.
If I can recall, this is the very first time in the history of Super Eagles attending an AFCON and despite not winning, the Presidency has rewarded the players and their officials with national honours, houses and lands in Abuja. What is your take on that?
I think is one of the best decisions that I have seen taken by the government for football development in Nigeria. Nobody gave the boys any chance when the tournament kicked off. They were not rated, they were not amongst the favourites. So many countries were rated far above the Super Eagles. And so, it is against this backdrop that you will look at the feat achieved by the boys, going all the way to the final without losing any match. Also remember that when Super Eagles were playing in the AFCON in Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria was going through a phase back home, the sufferings were becoming unbearable but of course, President Bola Tinubu has been doing his best to make like meaningful for citizens even though most of the policies have not started to bear results. And so Super Eagles rose to the occasion to put smiles on the faces of Nigerians, winning and going all the way to the final. The people were happy that we have something to talk about. We temporarily kept aside our worries over soaring inflation and cost of living. Super Eagles gave us joy. I am happy President Tinubu took cognizance of that. In spite all other things, football unites us as Nigerians. Nobody remembers you are Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo or Itsekiri when Super Eagles are playing. It was on the strength of this magnanimity that I had to take a full page advertisement in the newspaper to congratulate President Tinubu for the honour. It is a message to up coming footballers that there is reward for hard work as exemplified by the Super Eagles in Côte d’Ivoire. I also believe that this will ginger the boys to qualify for the next World Cup in 2026.
It is not only the players and officials that were honoured. President Tinubu also honoured the NFF President Ibrahim Gusau and General Secretary Mohammed Sanusi. This is really commendable and I will want successive administrations to emulate this gesture for sports development in Nigeria. I really must tell you that the players never expected anything. Because they lost the AFCON final to Côte d’Ivoire and did not bring the trophy home, they thought nobody was going to organise any reception for them. They were all shocked and are now encouraged to want to give their all to Nigeria when the World Cup qualifiers restart in June. Another AFCON in Morocco is just around the corner next year. You will be amazed what this national honours and gifts will do to the team.
The coach, Peseiro has exceeded the semi final target he was given at AFCON 2023 by playing in the final. Now that his contract has expired, what do you want the NFF to do with the Portuguese?
Peseiro is a sensitive matter. It is an issue I don’t want to dwell on because I want to respect the leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation. They will do the technical and tactical appraisals to know if he deserves to stay or not. Like I said I want to leave the decision to the board. If they want to keep him, let that be their choice and not someone asked us to do it. I know that the NFF under Ibrahim Gusau wants to excel. I have seen that in many of the decisions taken by the board so far. I am truly excited about how Gusau is going about running the federation. I expected it because he was a key member of my administration for eight years. Before then, he worked with former NFF President Aminu Maigari. So he has been around Nigerian football for a while and has mastered the rope. The Peseiro matter is a sensitive one and don’t want to be seen to be giving an opinion on it before the board takes a decision. And so, if you will excuse me, leave me out of Peseiro matter for now.
What has happened to some of the sponsors that your administration attracted to the NFF? It appears most no longer exist….
No, what I said during my time at the NFF was that we took over the administration from point zero. We attracted these sponsors and even took self funding to 80 per cent. It is all there in our audited reports by PwC. It was captured. We had our sponsors. Our subvention was less than N1 billion for 11 national teams. Government intervenes when we go for international competitions like AFCON, World Cup etc for both the women and men’s teams. But we went out and painted a picture of a good, clean board to the Nigerian Corporates. We painted the picture of integrity and a new NFF and of course, we attracted a lot of sponsorships. I can tell you a secret today that when I got elected in 2014, we were going to have a game but sadly the then General Secretary Musa Ahmadu brought to me a memo that we were going to buy jerseys. I was shocked and asked what happed to ADIDAS? Nigeria then just won the AFCON in 2013 which ought to make ADIDAS want to stay on with Nigeria. The GS told me that ADIDAS had left. I had to approve N25million for the jerseys. It was a tortuous journey a football nation should not be made to go through. We were determined to end Nigeria buying jersey. And so we put on our thinking caps and began to search for a sportswear brand to partner the NFF. So when we got NIKE, I told them to play with our jersey. We wanted a lifestyle jersey that can be worn to church, mosque, even party or club. We wanted a jersey that people will see and say “WAO!” It was a marketing strategy that has paid off now. It was a departure from the conservative green white green stuff. It is Nigeria and perhaps South Africa that NIKE still have robust relationships with in Africa. MTN is there, Nigerian Breweries Plc is also there and a host of other sponsors are still with the NFF under Gusau’s watch.
But why is the NIKE contract with Nigeria not having monetary benefits like it was in the past when the Late Noel Okorougo was in charge?
It was not a pro bono contract. I told you we bought jerseys worth N25million when I came on board but here we are not paying a dime for the kits from NIKE. NIKE gives Nigeria kits worth $1 million that is the worth of the contract. What we get from NIKE is not limited to jerseys alone. We get all kinds of gears like winter jackets, kits for matches and trainings as well as stuff that our players wear in camps. It is so for all out national teams. The entire package is in excesses of $1 million. You just imagine if we were to take such funds from our account to buy those stuffs. Now, NIKE has put bonus for the players. They have lined up what the players stand to get on every stage of a tournament. This gingered the boys to get to qualify for the World Cup in 2018 in Russia, our women’s team won the Women’s AFCON back to back and have never missed any of the editions of the World Cup since inception in China in 1991. We won the African Under-23 and several others like the All Africa Games we won gold and silver. In the Olympic men’s football, we have won all the medals starting with the gold in Atlanta, silver in Beijing 2008 and the bronze at Rio Janeiro 2016. Our sponsors saw integrity in everything that we did while in office. So back to your question, what Gusau is doing is consolidating with the sponsors. So NIKE, Premier Lotto, MTN, Nigerian Breweries and several others are still there. All these put together represents about 30 per cent funding of the NFF.
What happened to the major partnership NFF had with AITEO?
It is something I don’t want to dwell on. We are all away that International Oil Companies (IOCs) have issues and AITEO is no exception. Most of them are going through the stress of repayment of loans they took for operations. So when AITEO said they don’t want again, we clearly understood their position. So also Coca-Cola. I believe with the success achieved by Super Eagles at this AFCON is enough for the NFF to leverage on to attract more sponsors. So also the performance of the Super Falcons who almost defeated a super power in women’s football like England at the last World Cup in Australia.
Back to foreign-born players in Super Eagles, are you happy William Troost-Ekong emerged the Most Valuable Player of AFCON 2023?
It is wonderful and I am happy for him. I know a lot of Nigerian born players in Europe who are regretting not emulating what Ekong, Iwobi, Lookman and Others did, opting to play for Nigeria. You will not believe that after that final in Abidjan, a top Nigerian-born player called me and was full of regrets not opting to play for Nigeria. He told me that if he had paired Osimhen , there was no way he would not have scored three goals in that final against Côte d’Ivoire. One thing that I keep telling these players is that when your club does not treat you well, you have your national team to fall back on. I told that player the story of Ahmed Musa who faced challenges at Leicester City when he had some matrimonial issues. Because he was not playing at the club level, our former coach, Gernot Rohr said he didn’t want him in Super Eagles. I said no, you can not do that coach. Ahmed Musa is a national team player who gives 100 per cent of his efforts to the country. Because he was not playing did not mean we drop him from the team. At the end of the day, the coach accepted my position and Ahmed Musa featured in that team and became the head corner stone that was initially rejected. He became the hero of our team at the World Cup. As a federation president, you must be involved in the affairs of your players, their welfare and what is happening in their homes. That gives you ideas of what is happening to them psychologically. It will also shock you to know that when Côte d’Ivoire were on the verge of being kicked out of the AFCON at the group stage, I told the Ivorian FA President that he needed to side with his players and not listen to those mocking the team. I told him that the President of his country Alassane Ouattara invested $1 billion in infrastructure to host the AFCON. Idris (the Ivorian FA President) took it as a challenge. He engaged Pepe, Serge Aurier and other top players on what the team needed to do to rediscover that Elephants spirit. With the lifeline given to the team, they began afresh and went all the way to playing on the final and winning the trophy. If they had given up when they lost 4-0 to Equatorial Guinea in their last game in Bouake and were stoned by their fans, that would have been the end. So I have no regrets getting some of the Nigerian-born players to switch to Super Eagles.
As someone at the highest level of football globally, do you see that final as true representation of the African game even when the top five best teams in the continent didn’t make it beyond the quarter final?
It doesn’t matter the best five teams in the continent didn’t make it beyond the quarter final. Football no longer follows that narrative that you are painting. The fact that the top five nations didn’t reach the semis tells you that teams at the bottom of the rung previously are not idling away. They have woken up and challenging for the top also. There are no minnows in African football anymore. Look at Angola, look at Equatorial Guinea. Look at how they lost that game in the knockout in the last minutes. So I can go on and on. Football is not waiting for anybody. If you sleep on your supposed top ranking, you will be shocked what otherwise lowly teams will do to you. This AFCON in Côte d’Ivoire has reemphasized that for all the big teams to learn from. I can bet you that the next edition will not be like this because nobody will take any team for granted anymore.
For me, Super Eagles did well in spite not winning the trophy. To those shouting that we ought to have won. What about if we didn’t reach the final in that semi final match against South Africa? Yes, Osimhen’s goal was disallowed because of an infringement earlier. How about if the South African had scored that last minute chance they had? In all, we should remain grateful for what the boys achieved.
One other take away from this AFCON is that Africa has shown to the rest of the world that we can be thorough in how we handle our affairs. Now, everyone is saying to other confederations to go and learn from CAF on the excellent use of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).
Do you truly believe that it was unfair for the manner some disgruntled Nigerian ball fans trolled Alex Iwobi on the social media after the final?
It was sad. When people ventilate their anger, it is usually subjective. They didn’t want to know how and why we didn’t win. Their beliefs is that Super Eagles must win. And when that fails to happen, hell is let loose, they begin to look for scapegoats.
Iwobi did his best. What happened to Iwobi in that final happens in football. We have seen great players like Pele, Maradona, Ronaldo de Lima and Others suffer it. It just was not Iwobi’s day. I feel very bad that these Nigerians have forgotten so soon how Iwobi scored that goal against Zambia in Uyo that qualified Nigeria for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Iwobi scored Super Eagles only goal in the friendly against England at Wembley.
He has done so well in the past. Iwobi suffered COVID-19 during our game with Benin Republic in Cotonou and was about to be quarantined for two weeks. I had to put him in my boat and took him to my Ilase Beach place where he stayed till he rejoined the team after he was declared free from Covid. This is not the type of player to be harangued and insulted in the social media. I have spoken with him and his dad to calm him and put the incident behind him.
I don’t think the Nigerian situation is worse off like what happens in South America. You remember the case of Andre Escobar who was short dead in his home after he scored an own goal against his Colombian team at the 1994 World Cup? I just pray that the Nigerian situation should not get to that point.
It will interests you to know that it was not only the fans that were pained by Super Eagles defeat in the final. Austin Jay Jay Okocha, uncle to Iwobi was heartbroken. He put in so much with the boys, staying and sharing notes with them from the group stage to the final. He was so sure that that the up was coming home. But as an ex international, he had to take the defeat philosophically.
What is the update on that FIFA Goal Project sited in Ugborodo in Delta State?
The project is not completed yet. The contractor complained that some of the drawings of the project didn’t take into cognizance the terrain the project was going to be situated. The topography was not captured in the contract, same thing as having to spend two hours in the boat to ship in materials needed for the project. All these contributed to the delay being experienced on the job. I am happy that the contractor, Monimichele, is from the Niger Delta who understands some of the issues involved in doing projects there.
I also know there were issues of outsourcing some jobs to youths from the areas but because they are not used to working and being owed, that created a snag.
However, what I don’t like is trying to frustrate the job. I am into construction as well. I pay for those who supply me cement, iron rods, granites etc at the appropriate time. We are monitoring and he has promised that as soon as he get paid, the job will get to appreciable level by mid year. I am aware that he imported the pitch almost two years ago. Thinks represents a greater part of the project since he as done the castings of pillars of the terraces, the seats have been imported, gate house done etc.
I want to say that I have seen some funny videos in circulation about the project purported to have been filmed by some Itsekiri stakeholders. I am from Ugborodo. My grand father was a ‘Warrant Chief’ of Ugborodo so I cannot say who are more from Ugborodo than Amaju Pinnick. So when I hear some of them say certain things about our Iwere Land I shudder, wondering why all these bitterness? There is no kingdom in Nigeria that you don’t have pockets of individuals going against the generally accepted leadership but you must respect the authority of Iwere Land. Why are these people so bitter that they are attacking the Olu? Is it because he Olu has stopped them from certain unmerited privileged they were enjoying? The Olu is not losing anything from them but gaining more support from those who cherish the stability his reign has brought to Iwere Land. So anybody working against the FIFA Project in Ugborodo and thinks he’s doing so discredit the Itsekiri people is unfortunately denying youths of the area what the counterparts in Northern region of the country are enjoying.
