The Female Football Interest Group (FFIG) has attacked the Vice President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Seyi Akinwunmi, for making wrong comments on his assessment of women’s football in Nigeria.
Akinwunmi was quoted saying that, the gender sport is more expensive than that of the men.
The Secretary general of the FFIG, Prince Dapo Sotuminu, said Akinwunmi’s comment was a clear indication that he does not know anything about the running of women’s football, and the addition that it is low in yielding profit on investments is also an attestation to his novice stand on women’s football. “It is a shame that we have somebody like this as vice president of the NFF who openly declared his hatred for women’s sports.
“The third point raised that lesbianism is killing women’s football in Nigeria is also discriminatory and it is unfortunate that this is coming from a perceived international sports figure. Barrister Seyi Akinwunmi obviously hates women football and that is the reason the NFF where he is vice president has refused to help develop women’s football in Nigeria.
“At last year’s edition of the LAGOS FA Cup, with Akinwunmi as chairman Lagos FA, only three female clubs were registered while over 85 male teams registered, I raised an eyebrow on this anomaly at the press conference to herald the competition and he promised it would be better this year, sadly there was no mark difference. With Akinwinmi’s mindset, nothing good will come out of Nazareth.
“For point of information, women’s football in Nigeria is more successful than men’s football despite the huge and discriminating treatments. The women’s national team, the Super Falcons, have been to more Fifa World Cup finals than the Super Eagles and they played in the quarter finals of the World Cup at USA 99, while the floppy Eagles despite all the investments are yet to play in the quarter finals. The Falcons were at their first Fifa World Cup at China 1991, four years before the Super Eagles made its debut appearance at the FIFA World Cup USA 94. The Falcons have won 9 Nations Cup titles, while the Eagles have only three always followed by crisis. The Falcons have Mercy Akide-Udoh as Fifa Player Ambassador while the Eagles don’t have any ex-player there yet. The Falcons have a five- times African Footballer of the Year in Perpetual Nkwocha, while nothing similar is the case with the so called Super Eagles stars who have been relegated to the background. The Falcons and women’s football in Nigeria have more educated players both home and abroad than the Eagles and men’s football in the country. Majority of the women’s soccer players are graduates of universities in America and other parts of the world, and hundreds are still in various universities.”
The FFIG Secretary General noted that: “Barrister Akinwunmi, also has a wrong impression about players-coaches relationship in women’s football, when he said ignorantly that male coaches take advantage of the female players, this is a primitive idea and it lacks open-mindedness that should be the case in athletes-coaches relationship in sports as a whole worldwide. Our NFF vice president despite being a lawyer definitely needs to be educated on this. What all these implies is that if Akinwunmi eventually finds his way to the NFF presidency, his first assignment would be to kill women’s football in Nigeria. God will not allow this to happen,” Sotuminu said.
