THE Chairperson of the Nigeria Women Professional Football League (NWFL), Chief (Mrs) Dilichukwu Onyedinma, in this interview with the Deputy Sports Editor, NIYI ALEBIOSU, at the just-ended 11th All Africa Games in Congo Brazzaville, speaks on the efforts to take women football in Nigeria to new heights. Onyedinma, who is also a board member of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), admits that other countries are coming up to challenge the Super Falcons’ dominance on the continent. Excerpts:
Women football in Nigeria has come of age, yet it lacks some basics, what effort is your board putting in place to make it more attractive?
We have seen really that female football in Nigeria has come of age and no doubt about that and other countries are vast coming after us especially on the continent. So we have been trying to put a lot of restructuring in place and as well a bit of serious planning to up our game so that other countries will not catch up with us. There are a lot of things we are planning for female football in the country to better the game.
Cuts in) like what and what?
Hmm, these are some beautiful plans but I will not want to make it public. I want people to start seeing them by themselves when it start manifesting. This is because if you start mentioning them now a lot of criticisms will follow, so this time we don’t say itis over until its concluded and fully ready to yield positive results for the game.
Even at that I think women football followers and stakeholders will love to have an idea of what your board is planning?
Okay, from the various competitions we have attended in the last few months and especially the Women’s World Cup, we met with officials of some great female football countries on how to improve our women football and they gave us some tips on to go about it. We have attended some workshops and we have been able to see that female football is more than just having the talents, as you can see that the country is blessed with abundant talents in female football, but the main thing now is how to transform the talents of getting good results that’s the stage at which we are now. We have the players in abundance but how do we turn it into our advantage so that we can get results? Nigeria is always a team many people want to see play because of our unique talent and good display of football artistry but we don’t always get it right when it matters so we are looking for ways to improve and get results which is the ultimate. We have been consulting with people in different spheres to share ideas with and I am optimistic it will turn out great for our football.
How far have you gone to secure sponsorship for women football in Nigeria?
As a matter of fact we are seriously working on that because that is one area that helps greatly in the development of female football and something good will happen soon in this area. I mean What everybody will be proud of. It’s a long term plan for female football and once the deal is finally sealed, all of us will be proud of it. We have been discussing with a lot of corporate bodies and the response is encouraging so we are optimistic that the sponsorship deal will bring about positive change to our female football. And for your information, the NFF president (Amaju Pinnick) is helping greatly and like I said it’s going to be good news for all of us to celebrate at the end if the day.
How do you intend to improve women football league in Nigeria?
We have done a lot and part of it was the introduction of the premier league which has helped a lot at least in raising a good team for the national team. Sir, like this All Africa Games, most of our foreign-based players were not here, but the players from the local league and they did very well.
It was alleged in some quarters that your board is planning to hire a foreign coach for the Super Falcons, can you please throw more light on this?
Yeah, that’s correct but we are still working on it. It is still in the pipeline
(Cuts in), can we have the name of the coach?
Haaaaaa, no no,it’s not ethical for me to release the name of the person because discussion is still on going.
TRIBUNE NG
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