Nigeria Football Federation president, Amaju Pinnick, has outlined the plans he has for Nigerian football in the coming year.
Pinnick in 2019 became a FIFA Executive member and won a legs battle against corruption allegations to cement his power in Nigerian football, but believes Nigerian football is set to get even bigger in 2020.
Pinnick, who can count Nigeria’s third place AFCON 2019 finish and the Super Eagles improved performances as major successes in 2019 has revealed that the governing body will focus on the qualifying campaigns of the Super Eagles for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, as well as the qualifiers of the Super Falcons for the 12th edition of the Women Africa Cup of Nations, and those of the U17 girls and U20 girls for their different FIFA World Cup finals.
According to Pinnick who spoke to reporters on Tuesday Dec. 31st, Nigerian teams are expected to not just participate in tournaments but win the tournaments.
“We are also determined to concentrate much effort and resources on youth development programmes, including but not limited to the NFF/Zenith Bank Future Eagles Programme. It is important that we continue to churn out quality talents and work hard to nurture them to excellent products who will then fit into the age-grade National Teams and bring honour to the nation at various championships.”
“As we have made known, teams representing Nigeria in international matches and competitions will be told in no uncertain terms that they are expected to win, not just participate. The era of simply being there to participate is long gone.”
The draw for the qualifying campaign of the 2022 FIFA World Cup finals will be conducted in Egypt in January 2020, with 10 groups of four teams each that will produce only the winner from each group to play five home-and-away matches to select representatives of Africa in Qatar.
