The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has reacted to a remark by Randy Waldrum on the “lack of support” for the Super Falcons’ preparations for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. 

Waldrum expressed “frustration” with the federation’s “uninspiring attitude” towards the Falcons ahead of the competition.

He said the Nigerian women’s football team is “not prepared the way we need to be” for the World Cup billed to kick off on July 20.

The American coach also accused the NFF of cancelling their final training camp without explanation.

Reacting to Waldrum’s remark, Ademola Olajire, NFF’s communications director, said the Falcons head coach is “shooting his mouth off” instead of “admitting to the glaring deficiencies” he displayed in the list of players invited to participate in the tournament.

Olajire argued that Waldrum invited some players who should not be in camp and also left others who should have made his final list.

The NFF spokesperson added that the final training camp was cancelled because it would have been a “waste of resources.”

“We have to first ask when the European season ended. The man wanted a 2-week camping for only home-based professionals (whom he already gave very little consideration in his provisional list),” Olajire said.

“Like two weeks ago, he released his final list of 23, meaning there was absolutely no need for any camping for home-based again except to simply waste resources. Instead of admitting his glaring deficiencies, he’s there shooting his mouth off.

“He knows he will not have Ajibade & Ayinde (2 key players) for the opening match against Canada, yet he left out Okobi and Otu from the squad. The NFF felt it would make more sense for the 23 to go straight to Australia & camp for 15 or 16 days acclimatising to the weather and conditions.

“The NFF wanted him to groom a home-based goal tender like Chiamaka Nnadozie was groomed. Instead, he kept bringing Yewande Balogun (who actually started as a goalkeeper coach) all the time without consideration for a home girl.”

The 2023 World Cup will be hosted by New Zealand and Australia.

The Falcons are scheduled to play Canada in their first match on July 21 before facing Australia six days later. The team will play Ireland in their last group game on July 31.

Long-standing Enyimba International FC chairman Chief Felix Anyansi’s time at two time African champions – the people’s elephant may be up with recent political waves sweeping across Abia state under new helsman Alex Otti.

Anyansi was conspicuously missing at the Enyimba victory party staged for them by newly-elected Abia governor Andrew Otti this week.

This added fuel growing speculations that a new man will soon be at the helm of ‘the people’s elephant’.

Anyansi himself had known for some time now that his time at the club is up after change of guards at the Abia government house..

Already, the chairman of another top club owned by abia government, Emeka Inyama, quit his post recently.

This development has been severely criticized as being political motivated following the emergence of Dr Alex Otti of Labour party who dethroned the People’s Democratic Party under whose reign Anyansi served as Enyimba FCchairman.

Anyansi has since 1999 held sway as chairman of Enyimba, achieving great success in national and international engagements. 

The people’s elephants finished the 2022/2023 season as league champions.

• FIFA is set to put to test new rules that could see a massive change in how offside calls are made
• Arsene Wenger has been leading the onslaught of seeing the rules changed
• FIFA is now set to trial Wenger’s proposals before making a decision on its subsequent adoption or rejection

Arsene Wenger’s calls for a change to the offside rules are seemingly set to bear fruit with the world governing body for football, FIFA, set to trial the new proposals.

Wenger has been vocal in his calls for the offside rules to be changed. The former Arsenal  manager has served as FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development since he left the Gunners in 2018.

Under the current dispensation, a player is often deemed offside when any part of his body that can play the ball is ahead of the last defender. This has often led to lengthy Video Assistant Referee(VAR) checks, with goals being ruled out due to the tightest of margins.

The legendary former manager wants the whole body of a player, not just a part, to be ahead of the last defender for it to be deemed as offside.

FIFA is now set to heed to Wenger’s proposals, with Sweden becoming the first league to put the proposed changes to use. The country’s men’s U-21 and women’s U-19 leagues will use the new rules before it moves to other leagues in the Netherlands and in Italy.

After the trial, FIFA will sit down to discuss its impact and possible adoption before it is forwarded to the International Football Association Board(IFAB) which approves any permanent rules of the game.

Inside the changes to Ballon d’Or rules

The 2023 Ballon d’Or debate has already shaped into a battle between an existing superstar and one of his heir apparent.

At 35 years old, Lionel Messi is still in the running to win the individual prize and remains a strong candidate to win a record-extending eighth title, but Erling Haaland is set to have a say as well.

L’Equipe, the magazine responsible for organising the annual gala where the best individual performances are feted, announced changes to the Balon d’Or rules in 2021, shortly after Messi  had clinched his 7th gong.

Chioma Ajunwa, whose 7.12m leap at the Atlanta ‘96 Long jump event fetched Nigeria, its first Olympic gold medal, and so far, the only individual gold medal has embarked on campaign directing youths to stay away from illicit drugs.

Ajunwa, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, was speaking at a conference organized by her outreach, the Chioma Ajunwa Foundation.

It was in commemoration of the 2023 edition of the ‘United Nations Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking’ held at the Police College Ikeja, Lagos.

She cautioned the youths, especially the sportsmen and women  to avoid illicit drug use because of its inherent negative effects on their health.

She stated that the conference became necessary in order to create awareness, enlighten and sensitize the youths against the use of illicit drugs and cultism especially among students, athletes, security agencies and general citizenry.

“This fight which my foundation started six years ago was borne out of the desire to make our youths realize that there is no gain in using illicit drugs as it can only ruin their careers and destroy lives.

“Therefore, the conference today is a patriotic effort and also a timely measure taken by Chioma Ajunwa Foundation to help our youths escape from the claws of the temptation posed by illicit drug use.

“I’m glad that a representative from the NDLEA is here to open our eyes on the dangers associated with illicit drug use and its effects. And for our youths to have a breakthrough in every facet of their endeavours, they must shun illicit drug use,” she began.

Ajunwa-Oparah further revealed that the issue of illicit drug use among our youths is becoming alarming, worrisome and very complex because of its adverse effects on the generality of our society.

She affirmed that people in Nigeria who use drugs face stigma and discrimination which harm their physical and mental health, thus inhibiting them from accessing the help they need to overcome the effect of illicit drug use.

However, in her opening lecture, Deputy Director, Directorate of General Investigation, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Mrs Archie-Abia Ibinabo took time to lecture the audience  that they should always shun the temptation of doing drugs or allowing their friends to deceive them into joining cultism.

She implored the audience, made up of secondary school students and football academies, that there is no gain in getting involved in illicit drug.

She pointed out the adverse effects which could lead to their untimely death, permanent disability, suicide, psychiatric problem or long jail term.

Ibinabo further revealed the efforts being made by NDLEA at combating illicit drug use by the citizenry and saluted the efforts of Chioma Ajunwa Foundation in drawing the attention of the population on this new scourge.

“Today, we are reinvigorating our efforts at curbing drug menace and that is why the theme of this year’s event is ‘People first! Stop stigma, discrimination, and strengthen prevention.

“My advice to athletes and our youths is that they should stay away from drugs; be clean always and use your God-given talent and strength to compete.

“Also it’s important you advise your friends to stay away from drugs because if they become addicted, it’s always very difficult to overcome it and you will end up destroying not only your life but your family’s name,” she stated.

Achie-Abia reminded the youths that great Nigerian athletes like Kanu Nwankwo, Austin Jay Jay Okocha, Taiwo Awoniyi, Chioma Ajunwa, Mary Onyali, Falilat Ogunkoya, Tosin Amosun and some great Nigerians such as Pastors Enoch Adeboye, David Oyedepo, Mike Okonkwo and great businessmen like Aliko Dangote and Mike Adenuga Jnr all became great without drugs.

She restated with a tinge of regret that some great athletes and artists like Diego Maradona, Michael Jackson and Majek Fashek all ended up badly because of drug abuse.

Meanwhile, Prof. Olunifesi Suraj of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos and a United Nations consultant was of the view that the fight against drug abuse should not be restricted to the youths alone, but must all be encompassing because it involves the youths, politicians, security agents and even the military.

He submitted that the fight to eradicate illicit drug use might be difficult to fight because it involves a very powerful cabal who make millions from the business, but was quick to add that to achieve any meaningful progress in the fight, religious leaders and the media must be involved with sustained advertisement carried out on both the conventional and new media platforms to fight the menace.

Anthony Joshua, according to Manchester Evening News,  has agreed to remove the rematch clause from his contract in order to secure a fight with his rival Dillian Whyte.

Initially, Whyte was the frontrunner to face the former heavyweight boxing champion  on August 12 at The O2 arena, but talks for the highly anticipated domestic clash hit a snag when it was revealed that Whyte hadn’t spoken with Matchroom Boxing boss Eddie Hearn in a month.

Whyte insisted on the removal of the rematch clause before signing the contract for the fight. Hearn has now confirmed that they have revised their offer accordingly.

Hearn said “The great news is now they have a contract with no rematch clause for August 12. There is absolutely nothing in the contract of any regard that is going to cause any problems, let’s see.

“I don’t think they are going to sign it but I hope they do. AJ wants this fight bad. It’s the fight he wants but we want to announce it on Saturday, so we’ve got 48 hours.

“I don’t want to put deadlines to start rattling people but the deadline is on us to announce the fight and other opponents who we’ve got ready to go. I know Dillian loves a big fight and it’s here for him, so hopefully he signs.”

Joshua and Whyte have a history dating back to their amateur days over a decade ago. Whyte defeated Joshua then, but AJ avenged the loss in their professional rematch, knocking out Whyte to win the British heavyweight title. Both fighters were unbeaten at the time of their professional clash.

Hearn defended the inclusion of the rematch clause in Whyte’s initial contract, citing Joshua’s upcoming fight against Deontay Wilder in Saudi Arabia at the end of the year. He stated: “When there is such a huge A-side in the fight, you have to do your job as a promoter. Firstly, any huge name I have worked with in boxing has a rematch clause.

“Secondly, it was me that requested that. AJ is about to fight Wilder for £50 or £60 million, and he is choosing to take a dangerous fight a few months before. If he loses, he is out in the wilderness and loses the Wilder fight in December. If we’re giving that opportunity to someone else, of course, we are going to look for a rematch clause.”

“I joke about it with people here in the U.S., we have less days than a college preseason to prepare for the World Cup and it blows my mind,”-Waldrum

Head Coach of the Nigeria national women’s football team, Randy Waldrum, has expressed deep worries over the poor preparations of the Super Falcons ahead of next month’s FIFA Women’s World Cup to be jointly staged in Australia and New Zealand.

Waldrum who doubles as the University of Pittsburgh women’s soccer head coach bared his mind during a podcast interview with PSN’s John Krysinsky.

Mixed emotions

The American coach while admitting to being excited to be leading the most populous black country, Nigeria to the World Cup said he is equally unhappy that all is not well with the Super Falcons barely 30 days to their opening match at the World Cup.

He said: “Many years ago when I got into coaching, I have always dreamed to take a team to the World Cup so I am excited that this opportunity presented itself and we qualified for the World Cup… the flipside is that I know we are not prepared the way we need to be, I have been really frustrated in recent months and in particular in recent weeks with the Federation (NFF) for the lack of support in so many different levels.”

Though Waldrum admitted a lot of logistical planning would have been required to see the Falcons’ have the best of preparations, he noted the World Cup didn’t just come suddenly hence proper preparation should have been mapped out for the Super Falcons.

“I joke about it with people here in the U.S., we have less days than a college preseason to prepare for the World Cup and it blows my mind,” the Super Falcons coach stated.

Waldrum, who claimed he was frustrated to the point of contemplating skipping the World Cup, revealed that a 10-day camp was actually agreed on to take place in Nigeria before the Falcons fly out to Australia to round off their preparations.

However, for inexplicable reasons, the exercise was cancelled by the NFF meaning he can only send training programmes to players and hope they adhere to it as the professionals that they are.

The Games

Nigeria will play Canada, co-host nation, Australia and the Republic of Ireland in that order in the first FIFA Women’s World Cup finals to have 32 countries participating.

Despite the gloomy picture, Waldrum is hoping his ladies can still do themselves and the country proud.

He hopes the Falcons can get it right from their first game against Canada before facing Australia who are the hosts and would be fired up by the home crowd.

The best outing at the Women’s World Cup for nine-time African champions, Nigeria, was in 1999 when the Falcons made it to the quarter-final

Nwaneri will be hoping to toe the steps of another player of Nigerian descent, Bukayo Sajaka, who has moved from a rookie to being a key part of Arsenal and the Three Lions of England.

A Nigerian-born youngster, Ethan Nwaneri, has committed his future to North London club, Arsenal

David Ornstein of the UK-based sports publication Athletic revealed this exciting development.

The cheering news has effectively ended Chelsea and Manchester City’s chase for the talented youngster.

Nwaneri who is the youngest debutant in Premier League history is reported to have signed scholarship forms with the Gunners which also means a professional deal when he turns 17 in March 2024.

The England U17 international who is still eligible to play for Nigeria, rewrote the record books in September 2022 becoming the youngest player in Premier League history

He was just 15 years and 181 days old when he came on for Pablo Viera in the 92nd minute of the history-making encounter against Brentford.

Bright prospect

After the historic game, Arsenal Coach Mikel Arteta gave reasons for Nwaneri’s introduction; reserving special praise for the player’s guts.

“It was a pure gut feeling. I met the boy (and) really liked what I saw. Per Mertesacker (academy manager) and the academy, staff are giving me really good information, Edu (technical director) as well.”

Afterwards, the youngster continued to impress with commendable performances for the Young Lions in the U21 and England U17 where he participated in the European Championship in Hungary.

Nwaneri just like Saka

With his immediate future now committed to Arsenal, Nwaneri will be hoping to toe the steps of another player of Nigerian descent, Bukayo Sajaka, who has moved from a rookie to being a key part of Arsenal and the Three Lions of England.

Saka at 17 years and 54 days made his first senior appearance during Arsenal’s 3-0 away win in Ukraine against Vorskla Poltava on Thursday 29 November 2019.

Since then he has never looked back and almost propelled the Gunners to winning the EPL title last season.

The contract, officially disclosed on Friday, 30 June, is initially for two years.

In a move aimed at revitalising the Nigeria Women’s Basketball team, D’Tigress, the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has announced the appointment of Coach Rena Wakama as the new Head Coach.

The contract, officially disclosed on Friday, 30 June, is initially for two years.

Best choice

According to the NBBF, the choice of Wakama was well-thought-out as she will bring her wealth of experience, having previously represented Nigeria as a national team player.

“Wakama was a 4-year letterman at the University of Western Carolina and played professional basketball in the United Kingdom, in addition to playing for the Senior Nigerian National Team.

“Wakama received a bachelor’s degree in therapeutic recreation from Western Carolina in 2014 and an MBA from Manhattan in 2019.” the NBBF wrote.

Currently serving as an Assistant Coach at Stony Brooks University in the United States, she has honed her coaching skills while contributing to developing young talents in the basketball powerhouse.

The newly appointed D’Tigress Head Coach, who hails from Rivers State. South-South, Nigeria, holds a bachelor’s degree in therapeutic recreation from Western Carolina, which she obtained in 2014, and an MBA from Manhattan, completed in 2019.

Enormous task

Wakama has an enormous task in her hands as she steps into the big shoes of erstwhile coach Otis Hughley who oversaw a glorious phase of D’Tigress.

D’Tigress are the reigning African champion, having conquered the continent consecutively in 2017.2019 and 2021.

Notably, they reached the quarter-final stage of the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Spain, defeating renowned basketball powerhouses along the way.

Wakama’s first task involves rebuilding a team marred by political upheaval surrounding the federation’s elections in 2022.

This crisis ultimately led to Nigeria’s withdrawal from the last World Cup in Australia, a decision that shocked the sporting community.

Emotionally fragile after the events surrounding their exclusion, D’Tigress will require a skilled and tactful coach to guide them back to their former glory.

With the African Cup scheduled in Rwanda in July, Wakama will immediately focus on successfully defending the title.

The tournament will serve as a crucial test for both the coach and the team, offering an opportunity to showcase their resilience and determination to reclaim their rightful place among the elite in African women’s basketball.

As Rena Wakama takes the reins of D’Tigress, Nigerian basketball enthusiasts eagerly anticipate witnessing the team’s resurgence under her guidance.