SPORT Pinnick: 2017 was great, but 2018 will be more glorious
President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Mr. Amaju Melvin Pinnick has expressed conviction that the year 2018 will bring forth more honours and even greater global recognition for the Nigerian game. Similarly, he expressed satisfaction with on-field and off-field results for Nigerian football in the outgoing year. Pinnick was particularly happy that in the year 2017, the Super Eagles qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals with a match to spare from a so-called ‘Group of Death’; the Eagles B qualified for the African Nations Championship starting in Morocco in a forthnight and; the U20 and U-17 girls swept aside opposition to reach the final round of qualification for their respective FIFA Women’s World Cup finals taking place in 2018.
“Largely, it has been an excellent year, on and off the field. The bookmakers, analysts and football fans all over the world thought we were going to find it difficult in our World Cup qualifying group, but we made it to Russia with a match to spare. Now, we have already kick -started the preparations to the finals with a landmark agreement with the team on funds and renewal of the Technical Adviser’s contract to keep him fully focused on the job.
“Like the World Cup, qualification for the CHAN was also down to hard work and focus. We are ready to work even harder and focus much more ardently on our objectives in the year 2018, because we want to win the CHAN and achieve our best-ever outing at the FIFA World Cup,” Pinnick told thenff.com at the weekend.