Former Nigeria international Segun Odegbami has warned that replacing the leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will not be enough to solve the problems facing Nigerian football.
Odegbami spoke after the resignation of NFF President Ibrahim Gusau and the federation’s General Secretary, describing the leadership shake-up as only a small part of a much bigger crisis that has affected Nigerian football for almost three decades.
Speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s breakfast programme on Friday, the former Green Eagles captain said the country’s football system had become trapped in a complicated network of administrative, legal and structural problems.
“In the past almost 30 years or so, we have tied ourselves into a knot,” Odegbami said.
He argued that simply removing officials and replacing them with new administrators would likely produce the same results if the underlying system remained unchanged.
“We have removed, one way or the other, the people on the board and we might as well just say, ‘Look, let’s get a new set to go on,’ but we’ll get the same results,” he said.
‘Everybody Is A Football Expert’
Odegbami said reforming Nigerian football would be particularly difficult because the sport attracts strong opinions from virtually everyone, with different stakeholders often believing they already know the solution.
“Football is a sport that everybody is an expert. Everybody has an answer, and everybody is right,” he said.
According to him, the priority should be to simplify and restructure the system so stakeholders can clearly understand what needs to be done to move Nigerian football forward.
“The answer lies in unknotting this complicated situation that we have, that is not making things clear, so that everybody can have a clear idea of what we need to do to move forward,” he said.
Results On The Pitch Matter
Odegbami also reacted to outgoing NFF president Ibrahim Gusau’s claim that his administration was leaving Nigerian football better than it found it.
While acknowledging that the administration may have achieved some things, Odegbami said those accomplishments would mean little to ordinary football fans if they failed to produce results on the pitch.
“I’m sure he believes what he says and if you look at the issues that he’s talking about, yes, he has achieved some level of success,” he said.
“But as far as the man on the street is concerned, if your team does not win on the field of football, you have lost. That is the only measure for success or failure of a sport like football.”
The former international stressed that Nigeria needs a sustainable football structure capable of producing success consistently rather than relying on changes in leadership whenever problems emerge.
He pointed to Brazil and England as examples of countries with football systems designed around continuity and development.
“You have to have a production line, a seamless production line, so that every year, as Brazil has done, they have always gone to the World Cup,” Odegbami said.
Odegbami Raises Legal Concerns
Beyond the leadership crisis, Odegbami also raised concerns about the legal status of the NFF.
He claimed that the federation is not recognised as a legal entity under Nigerian law and pointed to what he described as a longstanding court judgment concerning the legality of the organisation.
“There’s a subsisting court judgment that has not been vacated up till now,” he said, adding that the judgment had remained in place for almost a decade.
Odegbami therefore believes the resignation of the NFF leadership should be viewed as an opportunity to address the deeper issues affecting Nigerian football rather than simply a chance to appoint new officials.
For him, the focus should be on building a football system based on stability, accountability, proper development structures and consistent success.
And while administrators may highlight achievements made during their tenure, Odegbami maintained that Nigerian fans ultimately judge football by what happens on the pitch.
“He succeeded,” he said. “But in the eyes of Nigerians, he is a failure.”
