Nigeria Football Federation President takes responsibility for Eagles’ failure

Following the Super Eagles‘ failure to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Amaju Pinnick, Nigeria Football Federation President, has been summoned to resign from his position, but he insisted that he will not heed.

Pinnick in an interview, accepted that the Eagles’ losing out in the final play-off to perennial rivals Ghana last month hence having them being disqualified for their fourth consecutive appearance at the Mundial, was his sole responsibility and he takes the blame but will never resign.

“Some people say, ‘oh, take responsibility and resign.’ I’m a soldier, I’ll stay till the end of my tenure,” Pinnick said.

“Taking responsibility doesn’t mean you are guilty, it’s just a courtesy out of maturity and out of the fact that you don’t want to ascribe blames to your subordinates. It’s quite unfortunate knowing that you didn’t do anything, knowing that you had sleepless nights.

“We did everything, but unfortunately we are out and we’ll bury our heads, but we’ll learn, that’s the beautiful thing. So, basically, we need to move from step one to step two.”

Pinnick further made it clear that the federation was not to be blamed for the Eagles’ failure to qualify for the World Cup, saying the entire team was given everything they needed to pick a ticket for Qatar 2022.

“We sat down with the players and made them to know the importance of that game and we gave them everything. Up till this moment, I don’t think you can fault the NFF. You can fault us in the past, but in these two games (versus Ghana), with all due respect, I think we are faultless. But like I said earlier, I take responsibility as head of the football federation in Nigeria.”

On 20 September 2018, Pinnick was re-elected as the NFF President. He was also the First Vice President of Confederation of African Football (CAF) between September 2018 and July 2019, and a member of the Organising Committee for FIFA competitions.