2026 World Cup Failure: Entire NFF board should go - Chukwuma

2026 World Cup Failure: Entire NFF board should go - Chukwuma
.....Says President Tinubu should stop them now

Former Vice President of the Nigeria Football Federation(NFF), Gabriel Chukwuma has called on the entire board of the Nigeria Football Federation(NFF) led by Ibrahim Gusau to resign from the board for failing to qualify the Super Eagles for the up coming 2026 World Cup in USA, Canada and Mexico.

Chukwuma who is one of the highest stakeholders in Nigerian foorball, having managed football for 22 years from amateur to professional, financing Gabros International Football Club Nnewi, said apart from not qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, the current board rendered all male national teams powerless, reducing them to minnows of African football which are easily beaten by unpopular or unknown names in football.
He further said that even as they are currently seeking board room qualification from FIFA over alleged eligibility of some Congo DR players used in the last play-off, they should resign, because if they had gotten their acts together earlier, the Super Eagles would have qualified normally, with ease without depending on play-offs.

He recalled: " Since last year, I have been telling them to contact me so that I can assist in contributing money and can possibly engage some of my friends to assist, if money was their problem.

"Now, they have failed, there is nothing they can do. They should stop deceiving the president or Nigerians. Just because our president is a listening president, they go to him and deceive him. They forget that Nigerians like football. They hardly eat or sleep when Nigerian teams are playing as they are always ready to watch them. The federal government gave them tax payers' money, including my money and they swallowed it. Nigeria has a crop of best legs in the whole world. But the problem is that those who manage our football dont know what to do, they are only interested in doing players' agent. Everybody wants his player to play matches. Football is either you get results or you get rich. As long as you want to enrich yourself you cannot get results. I said this many months ago that Nigeria cannot qualify for world cup. Not that I was wishing them bad luck but just to challenge them and qualify for world cup."

Chukwuma reiterated, " Let me say it again, all NFF board members should resign from their positions to allow young managers take over the management of football in the country and prepare for the 2030 World Cup. It is shameful that some countries that are not up to Lagos qualified easily. I hear that they are preparing to return for another term. It is an insult to the whole nation. If the president allows them to go for anothet term, we have accepted defeat. And if they are not resigning, I am ready to go to court to force them out, for capable people to take over. They have to leave for others to take precaution. In fact, it should be " fail and fail out". If it is done that way, nobody would like to fail. It is unheard of that for 8 years,Nigeria cannot go to World Cup, the Under 20 team disgracefully crashed out of the World Cup, the Under 17 team could not qualify for World Cup, the Home Based Eagles were disgraced in CHAN, the Under 23 are not even in existence and we only have the senior female team, the Super Falcons which they did not make. With dint of hardwork, they are ten time champions of Africa without the making of the present NFF. I travelled the other day and my friends were laughing at me, saying upon all our good players scattered all over the world, we cannot bring them together to achieve something. Does that mot show that something drastic must be done?"