The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has issued a statement to debunk false narratives shared by the national women’s team coach, Randy Waldrum.
The Football Federation stated in clear terms that the unguided outburst of the Super Falcons coach should not be taken serious owing to many fallacies embedded in his statement.
The NFF stated that Randy Waldrum was given a level playing field to operate and at no time did the NFF enforce any rules on him.
Reacting to the team list and training camp projected by the coach, the football authority confirmed that the change of plans was necessitated by developments in accordance with European end of the season where bulk of the players ply their trade.
“We have to first ask when the European season ended. The man wanted a two-week camping for only home-based professionals (whom he already gave very little consideration in his provisional list). Like two weeks ago, he released his final list of 23, meaning there was absolutely no need for any camping for home-based again except to simply waste resources.
The NFF stated further that instead of Randy Waldrum to admit his glaring deficiencies, he went about shooting his mouth off the mark.
“He knows he will not have Rasheedat Ajibade and Halimatu Ayinde (two key players) for the opening match against Canada, yet he left out Ngozi Okobi and Regina Otu from the squad!”.
The NFF felt it would make more sense for the 23 to go straight to Australia and camp for 15/16 days acclimatising to the weather and conditions.
The NFF wanted him to groom a home-based goal tender like Chiamaka Nnadozie was groomed. Instead, he kept bringing Yewande Balogun (who actually started as a goalkeeper coach!) all the time without consideration for a home girl. The same lady has only kept goal in one friendly match in over 2 years (and only because Chiamaka was badly injured in a friendly in Mexico earlier this year).
“You’re saying that you don’t know any home-based goalkeeper but you could pick players like Oluwatosin Demehin, Rofiat Imuran and Deborah Abiodun who had home-based goalkeepers with them at the same U20 WC where you spotted them”.
