By John Egbokhan

Officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) maintain that the players rather than the NFF, should be held responsible, if Nigeria fail to make it to 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Bolaji Ojo-Oba, scribe of the federation said this: “We have done our best by giving them all that they require and we are surprised and shocked like other Nigerians by what they played against Tunisia on Sunday. We cannot play the game for them or make technical decisions for the coaching crew because they are the ones to play and get the results.

“They are the ones who have not done what they ought to do by winning their matches and ensuring that we get to the World Cup”, added Ojo-Oba.

Sani Lulu Abdulahi, Chairman NFF

Also speaking, President of the NFF, who Tuesday, ruled himself out of contesting for a second term in office, insisted that he meant well for Nigerian football. But his federation has bungled Nigeria’s World Cup dream.

“What I set out to do when I got this job was to improve our football and qualify for major tournaments. It is not about holding on to positions. The players should start justifying what we have been doing to improve our football”, said Lulu, whose comment would not go down with fans who had begged his board to sack Amodu after the Eagles played a barren draw against Mozambique.

It would be recalled that many questioned Amodu’s coaching competence and had called for Samson Siasia to be drafted in to replace him but these officials stood by the coach, who even defied pleas to play a friendly match, in the weeks leading to Sunday’s match against Tunisia.
Interestingly, NFF had sided with Amodu, insisting that the coach already has a bullet-proof team, that could contain Tunisia, who, on their own, played Ivory Coast, during the international window, to assess their team for the Nigerian challenge.