Ikhana has not resigned- NFF

The NFF said the Falcons coach has not submitted a letter of resignation.

 

The Nigeria Football Federation on Tuesday said that Super Falcons’ Coach, Kadiri Ikhana, has not officially resigned.

The Federation’s Director of Technical, Emmanuel Ikpeme, said in Abuja that the body has not received any letter from the coach about his resignation.

Mr. Ikhana had on Monday told reporters that he resigned his position as Head Coach of the Nigerian female national team. The resignation came after the team’s poor performance at the 2012 African Women Championship (AWC) in Equatorial Guinea.

“I want to assume that he is still the coach because if he has indeed resigned, the letter should be addressed to the federation. Since we have not received the letter, we are still working on the premise that he has not yet resigned.

“Until we receive that letter before we know what to do and if we feel he should not resign, we will ask him to stay and if we feel he should go, we will allow him,’’ he said.

Mr. Ikpeme, however, expressed disappointment at the team’s ouster at the AWC in spite of the enabling environment that was provided for the team to prepare for the championship.

“It is difficult for me to say what exactly led to that, because I was not there with the team, but from the report I got and the matches I watched, I was not impressed at the team’s performance.

 

Not NFF’s fault

The Football Federation official also absolved the body of any blame in the Falcons loss.

“There is no way the federation could be blamed for the outcome because we gave them an enabling environment,” he said. “We also went ahead to motivate them by increasing their match bonus from 1000 U.S. dollars to 3000 U.S. dollars just to encourage them.”

The Director added that the board has to meet, after the review of reports submitted, to map out strategies of restructuring the team.

“I have directed the coach to submit his report and one of the technical officers that was with the team to also submit his report,” he said. “On receipt of the report after the one week deadline given to them, the technical committee will meet to deliberate, and from there the decision taken will be presented to the board for final decision.”

He said the federation expected the team to play at the final even if they did not win the title.

 

To review women football

The director said the federation’s Technical Committee would have to meet to chart a way forward for the country’s football.

“We really have to critically look at that team to look for a way forward, but that is not to say that is the end of Super Falcons or women football in Nigeria. We have the population and the talent, it’s just for us to sit down and map out the strategy.

“But I think the U-17 and U-20 are the starting points of the reformation of the team,” Mr. Ikpeme said.

The Falcons were defeated 1-0 in the semi-final and also lost out 1-0 to Cameroon in the third place match of the championship making it their worst performance since the start of the competition.