We are indeed witnessing the end of the Nigerian Football Federation whether you agree or not. Before now, many Nigerians never thought that there would come a time when things will go bad for Nigerian football that only the female national side would be making waves.
Lovers of Nigerian football may not know the gravity of what is happening right now, as they might feel that this is just a phase, but let us be clear: the retrogression of Nigerian football has been on for far too long for it to be tagged as just a bad phase, for a bad phase in football is when a team that is doing well begins to drop points even in games where they were clear favourites. In the case of Nigerian football, generally nothing is working as it should.
The reason we are attributing the recent failures of teams from Nigeria to the Nigerian Football Federation is that nothing would function properly without a good head, whether it be a living or a non-living thing.
Presently, a lot of things are out of place in the Nigerian Football Federation. Just recently, players complained of bonuses not being paid to them since 2019, and this was being talked about in 2025. Imagine a federation allowing something as significant as match-related bonuses, which could affect a player’s morale and inadvertently the performance of a team, to be delayed for 6 years, waiting to be publicly disgraced before finally paying up.
This pattern has been on for years, and you only find such a display of mediocrity where things have fallen apart. Where no one desires to be accountable for anything.
Let us take a look at the nature of the Nigerian national team: currently, the majority of our first-team players are bench warmers in their respective clubs; some only get to feature in the last 5 minutes of games when their coach wants to tactically delay the game. You can imagine expecting a high performance from sets of players who are being underused in their clubs. The poor results against Lesotho, Zimbabwe and South Africa were not a fluke.
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Why blame the NFF for the above? We blame them as the inability to discover players that are good enough solely rests on their shoulders. If you attend grassroots under-15+ player selections, you would hear the officials saying things that suggest that certain players have already been picked prior to the actual trials. The system has made Nigeria go from having the likes of JJ Okocha and Obi Mikel as playmakers to having nobody because the right thing is not being done. We could go on, and the list would only get broader.
Check how Nigerian soccer is faring at the grassroots in order to understand the above assertion.
As for club sides in Nigeria, there is nothing of note to write about them on the African stage, as there is a clear contrast in the level they play compared to the way other African teams play. The results are there to reveal the truth. The NFF recently inaugurated a disciplinary committee for referees but who holds the leaders accountable for the misappropriation of funds and the inability to discharge their duties properly?
The retrogression of Nigerian football will persist when the head of a federation owes favours to individuals for being elected or selected for the position of president. In countries where things are done as they should, you see little or no room for favouritism or ethnic considerations.
