Super Falcons’ WAFCON Crash, World Cup Miss: The True Story 2

***Continued from Friday ***

By Harry Awurumibe

No doubt, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) by the law setting it up, is the ultimate governing body for football in Nigeria. It manages domestic leagues, builds national teams, enforces global rules set by FIFA, and CAF and represents the nation in international football competitions including friendlies.

Also, NFF is empowered by law to manage competitions and look after national teams (men’s and women’s); select coaches and staff for men’s, women’s, and youth national squads.

The Federation is also tasked to arrange international friendlies and run qualifiers for major regional, continental and global football events.

Available records showed that ahead of the 2026 WAFCON, NFF utilising the FIFA Women’s International Window arranged a total of five Grade A international friendlies, one less than six played by Super Falcons before winning the WAFCON trophy last year in Morocco by  Madugu’s team.

These five quality games include a two-legged friendlies against Cameroon in Yaounde in February and March which Nigeria lost one by a lone goal but won the other 3-1.

Super Falcons also played two international friendly matches against Senegal in Ikenne-Remo in June and one final pre-tournament friendly against Tanzania’s Twiga Stars on Thursday, July 23, 2026, at La Noria Sport Complex / Lenoria Sports Complex in Casablanca, a few days to WAFCON kick off last month.

The main purpose of these international friendlies was to allow Nigeria’s to test squad readiness, tactics, combinations, and finishing capability.

The five international friendlies against three strong opponents that also qualified for WAFCON should have been enough to put the 10-time African champions in the competition mood but it was not to be as the team struggled in the five matches Nigeria played in Morocco.

Also, the federation  rehired two technical experts from Sweden, Par Karlsson, a Fitness Instructor and Video Analyst Igor Krulj, who also assisted Madugu to win the WAFCON trophy last year alongside local assistant coach Ann Chiejine and Auwal Makwalla, goalkeepers’ coach.

It was expected that the five-member technical crew led by Madugu will go all the way again to retain the WAFCON title and qualify the country for the FIFA World Cup but that expectation evaporated like the early morning dews after debutants Malawi dented Nigeria’s record of never been defeated by debutants in WAFCON after suffering a 3-2 defeat in the opening match of Group C.

Two more defeat by Cameroon (1-0) in the WAFCON quarter-finals and South Africa (2-1) in the FIFA World Cup African Play-off have made the efforts made by the NFF to prepare the Super Falcons ahead of the continental showpiece to go down the drain.

Should the federation have done more to prepare the Super Falcons ahead of WAFCON in terms of close monitoring of the team and beefing up the technical crew with technically sound goalkeeper coach who trains goalkeepers and studies opponent’s shooters and a Sports Scientist who tracks player data and fatigue levels. Perhaps yes.

This is even as a modern football team needs a large technical staff behind the head coach including an experienced Technical Adviser who provides high-level tactical guidance, long-term strategic planning and to shape the team’s playing style, evaluates performance, and assists with overall development of the national team.

He will also design a unified football philosophy and playing style for the national team and assist the head coach with tactical insights, training session designs, and opponents analysis.

Yet, there is a need for a Sporting Director to coordinate the entire team in a continental or global competitions like WAFCON, Olympic Games and World Cup finals respectively.

Perhaps if the federation had employed the services  of the above listed experts to support Madugu, the results would have been different or Nigeria would have reached the semi-final of WAFCON and picked the FIFA World Cup ticket as usual.

Finally, worthy of mentioning in this piece is the constant complaints of the NFF regarding a basic lack of operational funds including none release of its budget allocations and statutory government subventions for major international tournaments like the WAFCON, AFCON and other international matches involving the 11 national teams the federation is managing on behalf of Nigeria.

But critics have always asked for transparency and accountability from NFF especially over the spending of the federal government’s subventions and international grants from the world football governing body FIFA, CAF and West African Football Union (WAFU).

With much financial burden to carry, the NFF frequently fails to fulfil its monetary obligations to players, coaches and staff too, a situation that often puts the federation in a loggerheads with the supervising National Sports Commission (NSC) led by the Chairman Mallam Shehu Dikko, who has insisted that NFF cleared outstanding players’ allowances and other match entitlements especially to the Super  Eagles and Super Falcons.

In the face of the above, the financial and structural administration debates have intensified following the national teams’ recent struggles, prompting the NFF to launch an internal fact-finding probe into football development.

Accepted that the National Sports Commission (NSC) which replaced the defunct Federal Ministry of Sports supervises the activities of NFF which is one of the several sports federations operating under the Commission, the  meddlesomeness of the leadership of NSC in the affairs of NFF could be regarded as suffocating.

Although NSC has not completely stripped the NFF of its administrative role, but it heavily intervenes, supervises, and fast-tracks the direct payment of allowances, bonuses, to the players and officials as well as payment of coach salaries for the Super Eagles’ Eric Sekou Chelle.

The NSC leadership, led by Dikko and the Director-General Hon. Bukola Olopade, are known to be doing direct monitoring of the NFF and routinely interfaces with the Presidency, Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on behalf of the federation to clear backlogs debts and guarantee that tournament funds go straight to the players instead of through the NFF.

The Commission now  coordinates what they call a “Special Goal-scoring Bonuses and Financial Rewards” backed by government approvals and private sector partnership for the Super Eagles and Super Falcons in international engagements as was seen in Morocco.

In fact, this overbearing influence of NSC came to a head prior to the 2026 WAFCON as the NSC swoop on NFF leadership led by President Ibrahim Musa Gusau and General Secretary Dr. Mohammed Sanusi,  and coerced them into forming the so-called  “NSC/ NFF Special 7-member Welfare Committee”  tasked to manage Super Falcons well-being and logistics during their 2026 WAFCON campaign.

The “Joint Welfare Committee” which was said to have been “created to provide direct institutional backing, guarantee seamless camp operations, and eliminate off-field distractions” was  chaired by an NFF Executive Board member with NFF top staff as secretary.

Sadly, the Committee which was announced with fanfare by the Commission was not inaugurated and six out of seven members were stranded in Nigeria and could not travel to Morocco until Nigeria was eliminated from the tournament.

Another clear act of meddlesomeness by the Commission in the affairs of NFF ahead of a major continental assignment like WAFCON in Morocco was the imposition or unilateral appointment of a new “Super Falcons Team Coordinator” Mrs. Folashade Falokun, without the knowledge of the federation which already has a Super Falcons Team Administrator, Mrs. Mary Obodoku, a staff of NFF who executes the same tasks which the NSC appointed “Super Falcons Team Coordinator” was appointed to do.

But the new appointment which was announced by NSC on July 2, 2026 with the express mandate to take over the administrative duties, overseeing team logistics, welfare of Super Falcons and  organization jolted the federation.

The Commission also directed the new appointee to rather work alongside newly established national bodies and Committees-such as the  so-called “Joint NSC and NFF Welfare Initiatives’—to ensure Super Falcons’ smooth campaigns in Morocco.

Not done, the NSC mandated its appointee to henceforth takeover the role of serving as an administrative bridge for the Super Falcons players and technical crew during major tournaments including the 2026 WAFCON in Morocco.

Unfortunately, as the Big Bazaar on how to cash in on the anticipated 11th WAFCON title by Super Falcons by the sports administrators continued, little or no attention was paid to the preparations of the reigning African champions.

It was as clear as the summer morning that the focus of NSC and NFF prior to the 2026 WAFCON debacle was on the welfare of the team and not the proper preparations of the team.

In fact, the body language of NSC and NFF before the Super Falcons played the first match against Malawi was that “Nigeria can always win the WAFCON and for this reason we will motivate the players with cash rewards and pronto, they will lift the trophy again and again”.

But it was not to be as the Super Falcons set some unwanted records for themselves

in the competition by losing three out of five matches in the tournament for the first time, failed to qualify for the semi-finals of WAFCON and missed the FIFA Women’s World Cup finals for the first time.

Indeed, it was the Holy Bible that stated in a famous Bible verse from 1 Corinthians 10:12, written by the Apostle Paul, thus: “let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall”. This verse warns people to stay humble, saying “If you think you are safe from doing wrong, you might make a big mistake”.

The decision of the NSC and NFF to concentrate their efforts only on the “Welfare” of the Super Falcons instead of ensuring that the team’s welfare and adequate preparations go hand in hand because they are inter connected cost Nigeria dearly in Morocco.

Simply put, you cannot have welfare in place and leave out adequate preparations or think of one without the other.

When two concepts go hand in hand, you usually cannot have one without the other as they work well as a pair.

Our administrators did not do it but pursued  “Food Is Ready Policy” which has now backfired and eroded all the 35 years efforts of pioneer women’s football stakeholders including club owners, promoters, sponsors, administrators and some sports journalists who worked  very hard for the development and  promotion of women’s football in Nigeria and Africa.  (Conclusion).