The President of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick read the riot to the Super Eagles players following their unexpected 4-4 draw with Sierra Leone in a 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.
After the match, Pinnick went to the dressing room and talked to the players and the technical crew and made it known that he was shocked at how they surrendered a four-goal lead.
Pinnick told them that Nigerians would blame him and coach Gernot Rohr for the draw that he labelled a defeat despite the players being the major actors.
While talking to Super Eagles TV, Pinnick said: “The truth is that we can’t be leading 4-0 to Sierra Leone and conceded four goals for no reason.
“Since I became the President of the NFF, this is the worst loss I’ve seen in my life, the next few days I wonder how I’m going to sleep.
“It’s not because of losing, it’s not because we won’t qualify for the Nations Cup,it’s certainly because this is towards the end of the year, this is our last match at home, you know the passion, the love Nigerians have for this game.
“Definitely it’s football, it can go either way, but what happened to us, where we complacent, where we so comfortable that we were leading 4-0 and all of a sudden the goals start coming in.
“At the end of the day nobody’s going to call your name, everybody is the coach and Amaju Pinnick, that is the truth but unfortunately he’s not the one on the pitch, I’m not the one on the pitch.”
Though he did not reveal the identities of the players that were to be blamed for the draw, Pinnick swore that some of the players would be axed if he were the coach of the national team.
He said: “I saw the reaction of your captain after they scored the fourth goal and I shed tears for the first time in a long time.
“That spirit of competition is not there anymore to me and that’s the truth.
“I’m not the coach, if I were the coach there are some people I’d select, there are some people that won’t come to the team again.
“Nigeria has 200 million people, we are eleven and should consider ourselves priviledged playing for the national team, it hurts me so much because we put in a lot – the flight, immigration, custom just to make sure that everything goes seamlessly.”
