The President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick, has said the senior male national team, Super Eagles’ lack of discipline under sacked manager Gernot Rohr almost cost the team the Qatar 2022 World Cup playoff slot.
Speaking during a Channels Television programme, ‘Sunrise Daily’ yesterday monitored by our correspondent, Pinnick said the players believed they were untouchable and the indiscipline among them played a role in Rohr being sacked.
“We did everything that we could, but one major factor was that discipline in the team is lost practically. In the dressing room, discipline in the team was at its lowest edge and once you remove discipline, that foundation in the team has cracked,” he said.
“Players now talk back at you, players believe that they are indispensable. A lot of factors that will now militate against the team. We are only owing about two matches of all the matches they played in both AFCON qualifiers and World Cup qualifiers,” he said.
He further said the sacking of Rohr was a collective decision of the NFF board as they prevented a disaster that was going to happen.
“He (Rohr) happens to be the longest-serving manager of the Super Eagles. We gave him all the support. But we didn’t want to wait for a disaster to happen before parting ways. The last two games were very tough games for us.
“It wasn’t an individual decision; it was a collective decision by the entire executive committee. We were winning our games … There are a lot of things we took into cognisance. When you part ways, you don’t want to start ascribing blames; you just let it go and face the future with renewed hope and renewed zeal,” he noted.
