Minister of Sport and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung yesterday stunned all when he told the Voice of America that he was against Nigeria’s participation at the World Cup, media reports have indicated.
According to Dalung,
“That competition stinks of corruption; that Nigeria is too poor to waste money on it and that Nigeria would never win the trophy”.
He said Nigeria should be content with playing at the Nations Cup, Olympics, and Commonwealth Games.
He said that Nigeria could win the Nations Cup but not the World Cup. World Cup finalists are guaranteed huge sum of money running into millions.
Besides the Olympics, the World Cup is by far the single biggest sports competition in the world, drawing record crowd appearances and creating a never-seen before football atmosphere for its one-month duration.
The road to the next World Cup in 2018 is on, and the Super Eagles are starting on a good note, leading the proverbial group of death with six maximum points from two matches against Zambia and Algeria.