By Amaechi Agbo
In a brazing move to save their faces from possible looming non-qualification for the 12th edition of the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations, AWCON holding in Morocco next year, the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF on Tuesday announced the deployment of more coaches into the technical crew of the Super Falcons
Prominent among the panicky decisions was deploying 2014 AWCON winning coach, Edwin Okon as “Chief Scout” for the team
Mr Okon won the 2014 edition of the AWCON and is currently in charge of Nigeria Women Football League side, Rivers Angels who are taking part in the maiden edition of the CAF Women’s Champions League.
The NFF on Tuesday absorbed Coaches Justin Madugu and Edwin Okon into the technical crew of the Super Falcons, in line with a recent resolve to rejig the team’s technical group.
“In a brief meeting presided over by President of the NFF, Mr Amaju Melvin Pinnick at the Federation’s headquarters in Abuja, Madugu was designated the new 1st Assistant Coach of the Super Falcons while Edwin Okon, Chief Coach of Rivers Angels FC, will be Chief Scout for the squad,” NFF said.
The deployment of new coaches which is considered in quarters as a “vote of no confidence” on Falcons coach, Randy Waldrum, came after the nine-time AWCON champions laboured to defeat Black Queens of Ghana 2-1 on aggregate in the previous qualifiers.
With the team set to face the Lady Elephants who whitewashed Niger 20-0 on aggregate in the last qualifiers, the NFF announced that it would rejig the technical crew.
Bearing in mind that Nigerians and football stakeholders had not forgotten how the Ivoriens stopped the Falcons from qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Japan, the NFF feared that not qualifying for the 12th edition of the women’s football in the continent would be a greater disaster.
In the shakeup made on Tuesday, the NFF said Head Coach Randy Waldrum keeps his position but Coach Ann Chiejine was deployed to be 2nd Assistant Coach while Wemimo Matthew was moved to the U-20 team, Falconets.
The federation explained why the employment of new hands became inevitable.
“I want to see a Super Falcons’ squad that is feared by the opposition not only in Africa but all over the world. I trust that you two (Madugu and Okon) will bring some positive difference to our golden Super Falcons. I don’t want to see our Falcons struggling against teams in Africa when we should actually be going toe-to-toe with the best teams in the world.
“From now, we will scout for more players at home and abroad, particularly at home, and we will start organizing camps for the Super Falcons on the home front even before the overseas-based players arrive. We must make the effort and the investment to have a stronger squad that will continue to do Nigeria proud.”
Following a 2-0 defeat of the Black Queens of Ghana in the first leg of the second round of the Women AFCON qualifiers, the Falcons lost 0-1 to the Queens in Accra to scrape through to the final round on 2-1 aggregate.
Victory meant the Falcons will take on the Lady Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire in the final round. The Elephants, who eliminated the Falcons from the race to the Tokyo Olympics on the away goal rule, blitzed past their counterparts from Niger Republic 20-0 on aggregate.
Nigeria will host the first leg in the second week of February 2022, with the return leg in Abidjan a week later.
