Amaju Melvin Pinnick, president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has taken full responsibility for the Super Eagles’ failure to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, claiming that the experience has been excruciating.
Nigeria missed out after they were beaten by Ghana in the playoffs last month, with the Black Stars qualifying on away goals.
In an interview with AriseTV, Pinnick lamented how qualifying for the World Cup would have made his organization a lot of money just from jersey sales.
“I can tell you it is monumental. It is unquantifiable. I know what we in NFF and I, personally, have done for our sponsors and partners. I know the programmes we have designed for our Telco partners, and shirt sponsors are all geared toward the World Cup.
“If you see what NIKE is bringing out as Nigeria’s World Cup jersey, I don’t want to be reminded of the loss, very painful,” Amaju Pinnick disclosed.
The NFF boss continued, “We would have sold a minimum of 10 million of those shirts. I don’t want to be reminded of it. It has been nine days since that game in Abuja and it has been so tough for us at the federation. You just cannot imagine what we have been going through. It was to avoid a situation like this that we did all that we needed to do. We didn’t leave any stone unturned.”
Nigeria were seeking to qualify for the seventh time.
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