Nigeria follow Ghana out of Olympic qualifiers
African champions, Nigeria have followed Ghana out of the qualifiers for the 2016 Olympics after going down 1-2 to Equatorial Guinea in Bata last Sunday.
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The two sides had played to a 1-1 draw in Abuja two week ago and the result in Bata means the Equatorial Guineans, the only side to also have won the African Women’s Championship (AWC) aside Nigeria, advance to the final round of the qualifiers with a tie against South Africa.
The elimination of the Super Falcons, the reigning African champions, follows on in the heels of a similar fate suffered by Ghana’s Black Queens considered a very big upset for African women’s football, given the clout they wield in the game.
The exit means the Falcons will miss their second successive Olympics, having missed the 2012 event. It has also sent tongues wagging in Nigeria as the Super Falcons for the first time performed poorly at the recently held Women’s World Cup (WWC) where they failed to go past the group stages.
Sports Editor of the Champion Newspaper, Ben Alozie told the Graphic Sports it was a big disappointment for Nigeria to have missed out and perhaps, was a signal of the failure of officials to give proper attention to the team.
Nigeria played without most of their key players while they also had a caretaker coach, Christopher Danjuma, in charge after their long-time coach, Edwin Okon was sacked as a fall out from the WWC fiasco.
However, Ademola Olajire, the spokesperson of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) told BBC Sport that much as they were disappointed by the miss, they were going to have a pragmatic restructuring of Nigeria women’s football.
"The NFF president has quickly announced that there's no quick fix and that we need a much broader review," said Olajire. "We have to fast-track our entire plans for the revival of the women's game from the coaching situation to sponsorship.
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"There's no point just changing the coach hoping for the best without putting the structures in place. The immediate plan now is to restructure the women's league, implement all the professional plans of the NFF board to ensure the successful change is a permanent one."
With Ghana and Nigeria out, the final qualifying round will see South Africa against Equatorial Guinea and Cameroun against Cote d’Ivoire in the final round with the winners of the two-leg match qualifying for Rio de Janeiro 2016.