News
Aisha Falode gives leadership account of her Nigeria Women Football League regime
By: Monsurah Olatunji
Former Nigeria Women’s Football League (NWFL) chairperson, Aisha Falode, gave an account for her leadership from 2017-2022 on Tuesday, at a gathering tagged, ‘Brunch Meet Up With Aisha’, at Radisson Hotel in Lagos.
Present at the event were immediate past NFF President and FIFA Council Member, Amaju Pinnick; former NFF 1st Vice President, Barrister Seyi Akinwunmi; former Green Eagles captain, Chief Segun Odegbami; CEO of Brila FM, Dr Larry Izamoje; AIPS President (Africa) Mitchel Obi; former Nigeria international and one-time Chairman of the Lagos State Football Association Waidi Akanni.
Also in attendance are Chairman of Sporting Lagos, Godwin Ehakhena, Convener of the Ladies In Sports (LIS) Ms Tega Onajaife, President of the Sports Editors Guild & Group Sports Editor Vanguard, Tony Ubani, Sports Editor Sporting Life, Ade Ojeikere, Media Officer of The Super Falcons, Mr.s Oluchi Tobe-Chukwu and a host of top Sports dignitaries.
“It was in this same hall I started with a congregation of Sports Editors seeking your support as I took on the leadership of the NWFL and I am here again to render account of my service after leaving the NWFL.
“There were many challenges when we came on board in 2017 because there were no genuine administrative and governance structures, and no calendar for the Women’s League. With determination, we were able to turn many things around.
“We would not have achieved much without the support of the NFF led by Mr. Amaju Melvin Pinnick. Mr Pinnick, the immediate past President of the NFF, saw my capacity and gave me the platform and total support to add value to Nigeria’s football, especially the women’s game.
“Of course, we did our best because we used FIFA’s template in our drive to develop the game and the girl-child through football.
“Over 90 percent of players in the Super Falcons today are products of the NWFL and we are proud of their achievements, home and abroad, for clubs and our national teams.
“We had about 7 or 8 players at the Women’s World Cup in France in 2019. These domestic players proved themselves and promptly moved to foreign clubs due to their performance even before the World Cup ended.
“The likes of Rasheedat Ajibade, Chidinma Okeke, and Chiamaka Nnadozie were worthy ambassadors of the NWFL.
“Everyone can see that women’s football in Nigeria is now in the upward swing, judging by recent performance, especially at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand where the Super Falcons shook every team they came across.”
While addressing the guests, Aisha declared that it was time for her to report on her days in office as the leader of the NWFL board and urged them to score her performance.
“I am here to brief you on what we did while in office and I urge you all to score us honestly,” she said in her opening remarks.
“Before I start, I believed there were things we could have done better but here are the ones we are able to do. Now it’s time for the scorecard. My predecessors tried and we continued and improve on things we found necessary. The problems were there when we took over. I won’t say there were no longer problems.
“First, we realized clubs find it difficult to honor away matches and sometimes home games because they can not afford to pay match officials. So, we decided to pay referee indemnities and conquer the issue of work-overs in our league.
“We introduced club licensing to ensure that clubs have what it takes to cater for their players and staff. This helped to reduce players’ having to protest for payment. This also enables us to filter clubs into different categories according to their capacity. So we have three tiers which are the premiership, championship, and nationwide.
“We met the Super 4 project on the ground, we improved it and made it more competitive before turning it into Super 6. We have La Liga on board to train our coaches and we also get our media officers trained.
“During this period, we’ve seen more players get signed to play abroad. A good reference was France 2019 where most of our home-based players did not return to playing local league as they got signed from the World Cup.
“All these will not be possible without you all, thank you!”
Continue Reading