Nigeria must not play in the World Cup - Sports minister

Nigerian Minister of Sport and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung yesterday in a statement shocked all Nigerians when he told the Voice of America that he was against Nigeria’s participation at the World
Cup, that instead, the Super Eagles should focus on the Nations Cup and other common wealth games.


As shocking as these may be, the sports minister stressed further away that he sees no reason why the country should waste money qualifying for a competition with the knowledge of victory not being a guarantee in the competition.

Read his full speech:


“That competition stinks of corruption; that Nigeria is too poor to waste money on it and that Nigeria would never win the trophy”. 

“The cup that we can win is the African Cup of Nations. There is nothing again that will take us to another man’s balcony in the name of the World Cup. We already have the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. For these, we canattend such meets. But I am opposed to the World Cup. We don’t agree to it.

"Conspiracy in the World Cup is too much,” Dalung said, a statement that could upset the world governing body, FIFA. He was not done.

“There is the issue of bribery and favouritism. There is also the issue of corruption before you are even given the hosting rights. We are here suffering from
hunger and we don’t have money for such things. That is why, even if we try many times, once it gets into the politics of the game, we can never win.

“That was why this year, we had to tackle him (FIFA President, Ginani Infantino) and we said, ‘you , Infantino, if you win this election, you have to give us a position. If not, we shall not agree.’ And you see , by the grace of God, he even picked an African as his Secretary-General. That means he has started taking honey and rubbing on our lips. That means that one day, we shall get to really lick the honey.”


However, it is recalled that Dalung was the unseen
hand in the crisis of leadership, that rocked the NFF after Chris Giwa threatened to seize power from the Amaju Pinnick-led Executive Board.

It now appears the minister’s latest comments confirm him as a total stranger to sports who has bluntly refused to learn the ropes.