Exclusive: “The Real Problem With The Super Eagles”

Rafiu Ladipo, the president general of the Nigeria Football Supporters Club, has revealed the main problem that has faced the Super Eagles over the years.

In an exclusive chat with Babajide Orevba of Naij.com, Rafiu also promised that the Dream Team VI will make it to the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Brazil.

Read the excerpts below: 

Sir, you are supposed to be in Senegal to cheer the Dream Team VI at the U-23 African Cup of Nations, hope all is well?

Well, I am not yet there but I will surely be in Senegal. I have to make arrangements with my people from Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and other African countries that are close to Senegal.

I am going to be there. We have just played a match against Mali and we are to play Egypt next. I do know that my men will be there before the Egypt game, but I will leave Nigeria for Senegal on Friday, December 4.

So you mean there will be supporters for the team against Egypt?

Certainly YES! They will be there.

How can you rate Samson Siasia’s performance so far, despite that his mother was kidnapped and later freed?

We really need to appreciate Siasia for being steadfast. Not many people will be in such a situation and will still have that frame of mind to want to serve Nigeria in that capacity.

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He has given it his best and has been professional. He is someone who has shown great love for his country. Thank God the mother has been released, and I believe from now, he will start to do a better job.

I watched the Nigerian team against Mali and after we had three goals in the first half, the second half was not too good for us. In fact, I was panting.

I was praying before the match ended otherwise it would have been very difficult for us to progress. Thank God we won and I believe taking on Egypt won’t be a problem; the coach would have done a beautiful job with the team.

From your assessment, do you think the team will eventually bring home the trophy?

Well, I believe they will pick the Olympic ticket. But I was unhappy, particularly the way they played in the second half. The defense was absent.

The mid-field was not even there, and so the Malians had the opportunity to run rings around us. Thank God we managed to win 3 – 2.

I want to believe the coaching crew will correct it, especially against a formidable Egypt side. And you know they have a lot of antics, unless we do a proper surgical operation on the defense and mid-field, I am not praying for bad thing to happen; but if they correct it early enough, the sky is the limit.

Sir, let’s talk about the Super Eagles. Nobody knows the team more than you do. You have been there for many years, even when the present coach, Sunday Oliseh, was a player, you have been there. What is the real problem of the Super Eagles?

…..Cuts in! The real problem is simple. When our players are playing, when they are doing well, we should remember a time when they will start to dwindle in performance, then we should have replacements for them. Using a crop of players for 10-15 years not having reserves for them is bad. That has militated against our football.

In 1994, we were the 5th best team in the world, how come did we drop to 59th? That means certain things have been wrong and they are that we did not have replacements for players who served us so well.

What is happening is okay, and I believe that we can sustain it. We have called in young-men and say we are building. Let us build properly.

Before now, there were programs in those days; we discovered them and supported them to become stars and celebrities. But we have forgotten that those days, we get these men from the schools, from the grassroots before they became stars.

We should go back to the roots. Get those competitions revived. We should also know that football is big business that no player wants to play for fun.

Gone were the days when the likes of Segun Odegbami, Adokiye Amasiemaka and the rest of them played for the love of the game. Football is business and we should do football businesslike.

You have one of the biggest jobs in Nigeria because you need logistics and all that, how do you mobilise your men?

It has been very rough. I mean very very rough, intimidating and tasking. We require a lot of funds to be able to prosecute all these various trips. I do not just have one of the biggest jobs, I have the biggest.

This is because I don’t get money from government to do it. I go all about cap in hand sourcing for money for my members to travel around the world to serve Nigeria.

For my job is tasking. You do not have anybody who wants to walk into the place and do it with passion.

Are you getting support from the new NFF Board and other state governments?

We were in Port Harcourt for the Swaziland game, we have people who would go by road, some by air, and we will be at the hotel for two nights, at least, so we need money.

The Rivers state government gave money to the Super Eagles, that’s a good thing. But at least the supporters club should be appreciated. It takes some of us our own hard-earned money that we use for various trips.

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We are working like every other person, but we spend our own money and time for this cause. We plead to all levels of government to assist us. We need money, and we don’t have money, neither do we have planes.

Going to Senegal now, the cheapest return ticket is N185,000 for an individual. If I am going with ten people, we need N1.85 million. Of course we are going to be in a hotel. And you can’t go to a stadium with barely ten members. What are you supporting? You need the minimum of 50 to 100. So you can imagine what we spend.

It is me personally with some of my members that will go out, begging companies, individuals to assist us and we also use our personal cash to sustain the club.

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