An ex-Nigerian international and former Chairman, Delta State Football Association, Edema Fuludu, who is now Deputy General-Secretary, Professional Footballers Association of Nigeria (PFAN), in this interview with FRANCIS AJUONUMA speaks on the cankerworms destroying Nigerian football while making case for the rejigging of the statutes governing the administration of football.

We cannot talk about football without commenting on Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. What is your take on it?

Nobody is happy. The power of football in Nigeria means that both the elite, middle-class and the poor; all love football. Everybody wants Nigeria to be represented at the World Cup. And for us not to have qualified is a big dent and abysmal failure for the authorities involved, who are supposed to manage our affairs and let us qualify. After all, Nigeria is supposed to have been a big nation in football. After 1994 we were fifth in the world ranking but have dropped considerably over time and the icing on the cake was our inability to go to Qatar for the World Cup when we just needed a home match to qualify. 1-0 would have been enough but we couldn’t get it. So, maybe nemesis played a fast one on us.

From your observation, what went wrong, and please throw light on what you meant by nemesis.

A lot of things went wrong before then. If we had qualified the issue the task force is raising about statute amendment, change in the structure of Nigerian Football would all have gone under the drain because people, who are supporting us now would have followed them to the World Cup. We like jamborees and is very annoying that for eight years the present NFF led by Amaju Pinnick has made our football go down, instead of rising from the leagues to the national team, and we have the resources, the man materials, we have the woman materials. But because things are not done in the right perspective we begin to have this free fall and it pains Nigerians, it pains the government, it pains individuals, it pains those, who are the major stakeholders in the game.

Though you have not stated why we failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar there is this belief that the sudden sack of Gernot Rohr as Super Eagles head coach and replacing him Augustine Eguavoen contributed largely to the Super Eagles’ failure at the 2022 Africa Nations Cup in Cameroon and exit from World Cup, do you agree to that?

No, for example, I’m an advocate for more home-based players in the national team and a Nigerian grown-up coach.

So you don’t believe in foreign coaches?

No, not that I don’t believe in foreign coaches but they are not the solution to our problems, they’re not. If you bring in a foreign coach, who is willing to help our league grow I’ll know that he is working. Coach, who is willing to give us a stronger league, who is willing to encourage the domestic league by inviting the quality talents we see and help groom them so that our league can have a resemblance to standard leagues so that people who play; the footballer can have aspirations to say, even though I’m playing in the domestic league I still have the opportunity to represent my country. So, with that, we’ll see the development coming up because players have the opportunity. If you don’t create a platform for people there is no way they would be able to be exposed. So, the foreign coaches; earn good and they come here and they assemble foreign-based players, who do not have the time to adjust and train together enough and execute matches. What about the home league? What about our home players? They are utterly neglected and a country’s football is determined by the quality of the league it has.

So, who takes the blame?

Those running football. If they don’t go and start sourcing for foreign coaches we’ll not be having such problems. Now, if you are employing a coach let the mandate be clear. Let it be clear even if a Nigerian coach is. Let the mandate be clear that within so and so the time we want you to achieve this and this and this one and the contract is signed. Is not a vague thing, football is very practical. Sign this, do this and get this and these are your remunerations. We pay you according to when due. Now, it’s those who are employed that are the problem, not those who are employed. A Nigerian coach can be trained. We’ve Nigerian coaches who have quality and are brilliant, give them exposure, and train them. What are we using our money to do? We must train our people to achieve excellence and let them be and don’t put pressure on them unnecessarily. Eguavoen was unnecessarily pressured whether you like it or not; a coach who wants a certain quality of players and you say no, you have gone to secure players for him and you use your influence to go and secure and say he must play them because you have told the clubs so. Now in Ghana, the qualifier, the one before that Abuja encounter, some players who have not played in our climate, who have not actually worked with the team and you just brought them because they are doing well in the EPL, is not good enough.

‘Parents involved in exam malpractice for their children are destiny destroyers’

Are you saying the authorities forced players on the coaches?

You can’t rule it out, they are there, and they do it, that’s why our football is having problems. Where people will say this is mine, play him, this is mine, play him. They were doing it at the age-grade level a lot, where people have their players. Coaches face undue pressure and if you don’t they’re ready to kick you out.

You have just described the Pinnick-led NFF as an abysmal failure, are you saying there are no areas they did well, like qualifying Nigeria in all the age-grade world tournaments for both males and females?

At the youth levels we’ve always passed through short-cuts, that’s why they have always held us with MRI at a point, where overage players do. When we talk about development, we meant really development. At a time Zenith Bank was sponsoring the future Super Eagles, I was a member of the Youth Development Committee, we went around this country, scouting for players who are within the age grade and limit and we said these boys are natural talents put them together. But let me tell you, eventually these same players will not make the grade for the team they will now use to prosecute the real matches. Why? Fear, we’ll lose, fear, we may not get this one, fear, we want to win every game. Do the people who win the major World Cup do they win the U-17? You must start from somewhere. The players must work together and grow together and become something and that’s the way it’s done. Developmental football is not winning at all costs. You must practice, I’m a trained coach, played up to this level, so I understand what I’m saying. Developmental football is not winning at all costs. You must begin to train players. Look at England, before they got to the level they are now in their youth teams, it took time for them to win the U-17 or whatever, while we’ve been shouting since 1985. We’ve won so many, after that what happens. The people who played U-17 with us will now represent their countries at the senior level, while our own will fade away, what do you think is wrong? We age faster.

There is this allegation that Nigerian coaches collect bribes from players and agents, you have been in the system for a long now, how true is this?

Let me go back to the same administrators. If you employ me as a coach and you fail to give the necessary backing, in terms of even jerseys and camping what happens? A lot of our colleagues are unable to speak because if they open the cans you won’t believe it that they will have to collect money from agents to say okay you are bringing your team to come and play me and your boys are there so that I can be able to see them, I need N300, 000 for example, I need N500, 000 so that I can be able to take care of my team and you say why not and that’s when you do a lot of things. They are not saying that you don’t pay them. If you cannot pay Super Eagles coaches how will you pay the U-17 coach, U-20 coach, and U-23? They depend on those things which I call gifts. Let me tell you the truth, they collect gifts, and they depend on the gifts to move ahead, otherwise, they will be hungry, and their players will be hungry because the system permits it. It’s the system that causes it. There is a cost effect in everything we do. If you give me a job as coach of the U17 team and you say Edema Fuludu your contract is to qualify us and we’ve prepared U-15 players to this level, that you have seen, select from there don’t go and start looking for academy players here and there and start getting players because it’s not a win at all cost, I’m rested. I start to train them and start to groom them and you don’t get the quality team in three weeks, is not even possible in six months, it’s a continuous exercise. Okay what about my remuneration, what about my accommodation, where do I put my players; these things should be standard, that’s what we should have gotten at our FIFA Goal Project, a place like a hotel built, we had those monies coming but where are those funds? I went to Morocco, I went to their Goal Project when I took the U15 team there, we saw their Goal Project, about five pitches (two synthetics and three grass) and they are building a five-star hotel there for their national teams to camp, train and play, is like everything is there.

The medical section is exemplary. And I ask if are they collecting more money than us. Go to the small Gambia and you will see what their Goal Project is. Come to Abuja, is just one field; synthetic that is laid and dead with the poor environment. Have you been to the Goal Project, just try and be there to confirm by yourself so that you don’t think Edema Fuludu is just talking? And we are supposed to be the giant.

If PDP presidential candidate, party chair are from south, north won’t accept it – Bode George

Did Gernot Rohr fail at the time he was sacked, having qualified for the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon, and was also on the verge of qualifying for the Qatar World Cup with just two matches to play?

I’m telling you that we must put our thinking cap on. Rohr did not fail but I was one of those who didn’t like his way of playing football and I was also somebody who was saying every time that Rohr does not include our home-based players, and doesn’t give a sense of belonging to our league, that was my problem with him but Rohr contract qualified, qualify and he was using every means to qualify. So, it does not matter whether he was developing your league or your football, his own is just to qualify and where did it come from – Management. He doesn’t stay in the country, he comes and gathers his players and plays football. Are we developing? no, we are not developing. The timing of his sack was somehow not good enough. What did you put on the ground, because you are under pressure you removed him and now you are paying for it? How much money is FIFA saying we should pay to him, you pay now. Not that the man failed, he was working delivering according to the terms of his contract. So, he looks at the local league and says I don’t need any player here; I want readymade and he gets his readymade and the team does not play very well but they win matches and you say “ha we have qualified, is that what we want our football, so, that was the reason I will say it’s not enough to qualify, are you developing the system? Because over 10-15 years it’ll go down to ground zero. I cannot play football and begin to see our football go down like this.

In summary, how do you rate the present state of football in the country?

I’m not going to miss words, from 2014 to now this regime failed. And it’s not because it just failed, it’s a systemic problem where one man is at the head of affairs, and can do whatever he likes. It’s a country where the president can now be a coach, and media officer and go abroad to select players for the coaches. Be your president and let the technical department function. The technical department was not functioning. Train coaches, retrain them, and let your youth development blueprint work. So, where people cannot speak and say ‘oga’ this thing is wrong we’ll continue to fail. And that was why I was saying the current structure of Nigeria football, that statute is obsolete, we need to rejig it, we need to change it so that those who play and it pinches them in the foot can contribute effectively. At the players’ block, we want to contribute, we cannot allow people who never tested it in the hot Sun to come and begin dictating for us wrongly. If they were doing it right we won’t complain. We need to restructure the system the statute governing our football is obsolete now, change a lot of things, change the delegate, so that is not a yes, yes delegate Congress all the time and then Nigerian football will move forward. You don’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, let eggs be broken so that you can eat ‘indomelet’