by Seyi Lawal

Musa Amadu, the general secretary of the Nigeria Football Federation said the inability of the Super Falcons to defend the African Women Championship (AWC) was the major regret of 2012.

According to Amadu, the team’s poor performance at the championship hosted by Equatorial Guinea was an embarrassment to the NFF. He said the entire team would be overhauled soon following the “disgrace it brought to the country’s football”.

“A rebuilding process has begun. We are going to overhaul the team and we are going to overhaul the technical crew. By the first quarter of 2013, we will see the result of the rebuilding process.

“This will enable us put together a good team and expose them to friendly matches before the qualifiers for the Women World Cup in Canada in 2015 begins in earnest,” Amadu said.

The NFF scribe said that the inability of the Glass House to unite the football family was also part of their regrets in the last year.

“I would want to say that we have not been able to really unite the football family. The process has begun and it has not been completed.

“We still have some groups that are still not moving in the same direction with the FA as far as football development is concerned in Nigeria.

“I will be praying that in the year 2013 onwards, the football family becomes stronger, so that we can have the same objective in this project which is to move Nigeria football forward.”

In 2012, Anyim Pius Anyim, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi, had brokered peace on the crisis marring Nigerian football. Some of the parties involved in the crisis, including the National Association of Nigeria Footballers (NANF), were persuaded to withdraw the court cases.