Former Super Falcons head coach, Randy Waldrum, has questioned the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, over $960,000 it allegedly received from FIFA in preparation for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Waldrum, in a viral video on X, said that a source from FIFA informed him that every nation that participated in the tournament were given the money to prepare their team.
The money, approximately N1.4 billion in Naira, was said to have been received by the NFF in October 2022 to support the team.
The former coach lamented that despite receiving the huge sum of money, the NFF could not even put the team in camp prior to the World Cup and could not afford business-class tickets for the team.
The American said that corruption is never questioned in Nigeria unlike the US where people will seek to know how public funds are spent.
The coach also said that the NFF could only allow him work with just seven staff despite that it was FIFA that pays for the bonuses of the technical staff, adding that he was at the tournament without an analyst and not even a scout.
“I have a real close contact here in the US that is very connected with some of the board at FIFA.
“This person told me that in October, every country was given $960,000 from FIFA to prepare for the World, where is that money,” Waldrum said.
“If Nigeria got that money why didn’t we have a camp in November? We went to Japan, we flew in and played the game and went home…
“We wasted the last five days of that window to train.
“So, all these questions I have is where is this money? And the other thing I found out through my FIFA connections is that if countries don’t have the money to buy business class tickets for everybody, FIFA will fund the money and buy those tickets and just deduct it from the monies you get from FIFA after the World Cup.
“So there’s no excuse to say we didn’t have money to buy tickets and then we didn’t have camps. These are the kinds of things that the people of Nigeria don’t question. In the US, they would be questioned. If the US Soccer Federation was doing the same things, the US Soccer Federation would have to answer to it.
“FIFA also allows your technical staff up to 22 people. Well, we have only about eleven. So if FIFA will pay bonuses for up to 22 people, why don’t we have 22 people? I don’t have an analyst and I scout. Listen, the US has a scout in Europe, watching teams play in these exhibitions, in case they face them at the World Cup.
“We don’t even have scouts going with us to Australia. I don’t even have anybody to scout games. If we get out of our group, I don’t even have anybody to scout games in other groups. Everything I have to do is on videos and what I can pick up online.”
Despite the challenges, Nigeria managed to reach the round of sixteen of the tournament where they lost to England on penalty shootout.
