Amaju Pinnick: It’s very painful; I accept responsibility for Nigeria’s WC qualification failure

The President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Melvin Pinnick has accepted responsibility for Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, insisting that it has been very painful.

Speaking to AriseTV, the NFF boss bemoaned how qualification to the world cup would have given his outfit a lot of money just from jersey sales alone.

“I can tell you it is monumental. It is unquantifiable. I know what we in NFF and I, personally, have done for our sponsors and partners. I know the programmes we have designed for our Telco partners, shirt sponsors all geared toward the World Cup.

“If you see what NIKE is bringing out as Nigeria’s World Cup jersey, I don’t want to be reminded of the loss, very painful,” Amaju Pinnick disclosed.

The NFF boss continued, “We would have sold a minimum of 10 million of those shirts. I don’t want to be reminded of it. It has been nine days since that game in Abuja and it has been so tough for us at the federation. You just cannot imagine what we have been going through. It was to avoid a situation like this that we did all that we needed to do. We didn’t leave any stone unturned.”

Nigeria was denied qualification to the 2022 FIFA World Cup after falling to Ghana in the playoff tie of the African qualifiers over two legs.