Izuchukwu Okosi
Enyimba head coach Finidi George has sensationally revealed that the club’s management did not do enough to make the African Football League debut campaign a success story.
The former Nigeria international spoke to selected sports journalists on the challenges the ‘People’s Elephant’ faced as they played two-legged quarterfinals fixtures against Moroccan giants Wydad Casablanca.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe Aba millionaires were beaten 4-0 on aggregate after suffering 1-0 home defeat at the adopted Godswill Akpabio Stadium, Uyo and then 3-0 away.
Finidi George’s former international and Ajax FC teammate Nwankwo Kanu is the new Chairman of Enyimba, taking over from Felix Anyasi Agwu who was in the saddle for over two decades.
“After the first leg, they dropped some players from travelling for the second leg in Casablanca, claiming that they couldn’t get them visas. We had to protest it strongly before it was rectified. We later found out that there was more to it,” George lamented.
Continuing, the onetime Real Betis winger said: “Can you imagine that we went for such a game without the goalkeeping and fitness coaches? Myself and Yema were the only coaches that travelled for that game. That is very strange to me.
“Everyone has to put the interest of the club first because until this is done, we would only be joking.”
“We arrived Uyo on October 17 with the idea to have as many training sessions as possible on the grass pitch in Uyo since we are more used to our synthetic pitch. But we couldn’t really achieve that because the management failed to make the right arrangements with the stadium authorities.
“As a result, we improvised and had one of our training sessions at a primary school, while another training session was cut short because of the same poor arrangements.
“In fact, we played a team that was more used to the playing surface than us, the home team. It was obvious that we were at a disadvantage as a team used to artificial pitches and this really affected us.
“Also, we had only three trainings with the AFL match ball, meanwhile, our opponents had enough time to get used to it. That was why you could see my players struggling with their control, passing and shooting.”
“It is sad to see such statements being released when all hands should be on deck and things should be more organized to enable a positive environment for all. Yes, there have been issues, but I remained patient because I believed that we could harmonise efforts and work things out; but here we are.
“The issue with the team is obvious, and it has nothing to do with the coaches. The same coaches won the league with less goals conceded and highest goal scored. We won the best Super 6 ever organized, scored the highest and conceded the least number of goals,”
Despite the Aba side’s elimination from the competition, they received the sum of $1m (about N1. 2 billion) from the Confederation of African Football.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
