The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has requested the presence of First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan to lead the African Women Champions, Super Falcons, to the 2015 FIFA Women World Cup in Canada.
Speaking with the journalist on Saturday, November 1, 2014 the board member of the NFF and chairman of the Nigeria Women Football League, Chief (Mrs) Dilichukwu Onyedinma, said that the invitation was a mark of honour for Dame Jonathan whom has reportedly been a strong pillar of women in the country.
She added that the team would need her “patience and good luck” to succeed at the world stage.
The league chairman recounts the achievements of female football since her election in 2011 and noted that after the initial challenges that board encountered, the league have been able to reposition itself with the resultant effect of the identification of young and talented girls from across the nation.
Onyedima recounts all the exploits of Nigerian female footballers in international championships and the National U-17 women team, the Flamingoes who reached the quarter finals of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Costa Rica in 2014 with other standard players that are competent in the Nigerian league.
“Apart from the Flamingoes, we also had the National U-20 Women National Team, the Falconets that went to Canada in August and played to the finals of the FIFA U-20 Women World Cup with 99% of the players from our league here in Nigeria, only one player came from a school in the United States.
“We took another set of Super Falcons team to Namibia to reclaim the African Women Championship. In the victorious team, only five players came from overseas, the remaining 17 are all from our league clubs here at home”, she added
She also mentioned that the present board has been striving to ensure that there exists similar support for league clubs, especially from the private sector with the commissioning of various marketing agents whom she noted have been working to attract sponsors.
The chairman further explained that in a bid to the Nigerian female football more appealing to Nigerians, the board had unanimously agreed on the incorporation of the Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) as well as entering a partnership with the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) for live transmission of female league matches from 2015.
