Randy Waldrum, the head coach of Nigeria’s Super Falcons, ought to be looking forward to leading the nine-time African champions – the most successful national team on the continent – to their World Cup opener against the Olympic champions, Canada, at Melbourne’s Rectangular Stadium on 21 July.
The American has never hidden the fact that leading a team to a World Cup finals, for the first time as a coach will be a career high point. In contrast, Nigeria are a staple at the World Cup, with the Falcons qualifying for every tournament since the inaugural 1991 edition in China and reaching the quarter-finals at the 1999 tournament in the United States.
But the Nigerian camp is not a happy one at the moment. The 66-year-old Waldrum, from Irving, Texas, is in open dispute with the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF).
“What keeps me going are the players. Otherwise, I would have quit this job long ago,” Waldrum said in an explosive interview with the On The Whistle podcast. “Up until about three weeks ago, I had been owed about 14 months’ salary. And then they paid seven months’ salary. We still have players that haven’t been paid since two years ago, when we played the summer series in the USA. It’s a travesty.
“In the two and a half years that I have been here [in Nigeria], I have never had one time that the Federation came to me and asked: ‘What do you need, coach?’ I’m not going to be quiet any more … in October, every country was given $960,000 from Fifa to prepare for the World Cup. Where is that money?”
Ademola Olajire, the NFF’s communications director, in a vitriolic response to the journalist Samuel Ahmadu, called Waldrum a “blabbermouth” and the “worst Super Falcons coach in history”.
“Everyone knows Fifa pays preparation money for every team going to the Women’s World Cup. The team travelled to Japan to play matches, travelled to Mexico for a tournament and travelled to Turkey to play matches,” Olajire said.
“The team is presently having a training camp in the Gold Coast ahead of the World Cup. Is it ‘Mr Blabbermouth’ Waldrum who has been paying? He claims he’s been at the job because of the players. Bollocks. His entire objective has always been to add leading a team at the World Cup to his CV. [He is the] worst coach to have handled the Super Falcons of Nigeria, by a country mile.”
And as if this is not enough, the players are threatening to boycott World Cup matches should the NFF not adhere to an agreement to give the players 30% of the tournament revenue it gets from Fifa, which the NFF says it will no longer pay, since Fifa is paying each World Cup player a minimum of $30,000 for participating in the group stages, up to a maximum of $270,000 per World Cup winner.
Amid this chaos, it is easy to forget that Nigeria have a collection of top-level players with the talent to compete against the world’s best, if they are well-coached and have the requisite administrative support.
A squad featuring the Paris FC goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie, Atlético Madrid’s attacking midfielder Rasheedat Ajibade, the forward Desire Oparanozie, who is with Wuhan in the Chinese Super League, as well as the irrepressible Asisat Oshoala, who recently won the Uefa Champions League with Barcelona, are certainly not cannon fodder.
But can they pull victory out of the jaws of disaster and rise above the organisational and administrative chaos that threatens to turn Africa’s most consistent World Cup performers into a spectacle for all the wrong reasons? The group stages, in which they will also play the hosts, Australia, and Ireland, will provide the answers soon enough.
Recommended viewing
The Zambia captain, Barbra Banda, produced an exquisite finish to give the Copper Queens a dramatic 3-2 victory over Germany in a pre-World Cup friendly.
OH MY! A BARBRA BANDA BRACE WINS IT FOR ZAMBIA! 😱 pic.twitter.com/QZUC57Q9Lp
— Attacking Third (@AttackingThird) July 7, 2023
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