Former Nigerian forward, Victor Ikpeba has appealed to the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) to forgive Super Falcons striker, Desire Oparanozie for whatsoever offense she might have committed.
Oparanozie was excluded from the list of the 23-man squad that is currently representing Nigeria at the Turkish Women’s Cup, where the team has won two of their matches.
Recall that last week Monday, the former Monaco striker had queried the omission of Oparanozie from the team despite being the team’s top scorer.
However, during Monday Night Football program on Supersports, Ikpeba lauded the performance of the Super Falcons after beating CSK Moscow and Uzbekistan at the ongoing tournament.
“Super Falcons should not get carried away by their victories at the Turkish Women’s Cup. This is just a tournament where they can understand each other. It is just a testing match.
“I personally think, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) should find a place in their heart to forgive Desire Oparanozie.”
By Augustine Akhilomen
Please, Forgive Oparanozie – Ikpeba Begs NFF
Please, Forgive Oparanozie - Ikpeba Begs NFF
Austin Akhilomen
Augustine Akhilomen is a passionate sports content writer. A fan of the Super Eagles and Chelsea. My aim is to promote the game of sports globally.
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10 Comments
The Super Falcons are getting really old. I hope the NFF is thinking about succession
Like seriously…..?? Forgive Oparanozie……. for asking for the dues of the team as a Team Captain…?? Is this same Ikpeba not a part of NFF or am I missing something…? As a former player was he always happy when NFF does pay camp allowances, match bonuses, refund flight tickets and all that…??? This is 2021 and we are still battling with the same scourge Keshi fought as a captain in the 80s and was at a time banned for. And yet we want to win World cup….LMAO. We want to hire Spaletti and pay him $100k per month when our national team players are still owed monies from 2019 in 2021. And we want foreign borns to commit to Nigeria because “…its better to be the slave of a your motherland than to be the slave of a whiteman…”…??? LMAO. The kind of mental problem that is worrying this country is epic.
It is the NFF that should ask Oparanozie for forgiveness if at all they have shame. Oparanozie has seen it all in this game of football, she even has a street named after her in France, something that even Nigeria has not dreamt of doing for her (I stand to be corrected). Her teammates whom she was fighting for can continue without her, but what goes around will surely come around, and when it eventually does, it will come back worse.
We can continue to discard out bests for junks and see where it will land us. we have still not learnt from 2002 and subsequent years.
Ikpeba can see what we saw in the two matches where out strikers shooting is so awful than a nursery school student regardless of the win. NFF give us Desire back and stop this childish way of destroying our national teams with politics.
Ikpeba don fall my hand…..
How on earth must u beg these pple?
A girl that serve us right from U20 till date is asking for her entitlementwhich some old men deprive her of & u are coming on a public platform to beg them….
Ikpeba pls don’t ever repeat this joke again….
To hell with their national team….
Desire was a good player and a fighter for justice but I question ❓❓ her been patriotic in the face of provocation. How do you explain her lackluster performance ever since Oshoala was made captain and she carries this unpatriotic attitude over to the olympic qualifiers as the team got eliminated in a very questionable manner as some of the players refuse to up their game as Oshoala was widely quoted that there is a gang up to discredit the team by all means by some players . Oparanozie is become a disunity factor in the team and am sure NFF must have carried out there investigation into the disastrous outing by the team against a zambian team that as no pedigree in female football. Take a look at the new team with the new Coach then u will appreciate what unity of purpose can do. Pls let oparanozie be till she is ready to be a true professional even when team decision did not favor her. NNF will never come out and say this revelation but they have the authority to decide in favor of the country fans not to allow one player to toil with the joy of millions of fans and the country at large.
Its obvious you dont even know what you are saying. Desire wasnt even invited for the Olympic qualifiers. Desire Oparanozie, Rita Chikwelu, Halimatu Ayinde, Onome Ebi and those who were thought to be ‘ring leaders’ in the team were omitted from our Olympic Qualifying series. That was what caused discord btw NFF and Dennerby in the 1st place and that was one of the major reasons Dennerby resigned…..”Interference from the FA…”. Desire was marked right from the world cup when she insisted on the payment of their dues else they wouldnt come out to play vs Germany. The new coach came in and typical of local coaches, the first thing he did was to carry out NFF’s instructions and invite all sorts of inferior players (with our usual self-deceit song of “we have abundance of talents”), a move that has backfired catastrophically. Moreover we played CIV in the qualifiers and not Zambia and Desire was never part of the team for both legs. We struggled vs Algeria and couldnt beat CIV to even reach the next 2 stages of the qualifiers with our ‘abundance of talent’. This is the end result of the “abundance of Mediocrity” we usually celebrate in this country. Every tournament the falcons go to, they have to go on strike at the end of the competition to get their dues….but NFF oficials and their girlfriends will attend these competitions and get all their own allowances in full. …….Nonsense
This was what Oshola had to say:
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“In the Olympic Qualifiers, we did our best to qualify but obviously, we didn’t have our best team,” Oshoala told Goal.com. “Our best team didn’t play the qualifying games. I was there and we missed a lot of players from the Women’s World Cup who didn’t feature in the Olympic qualifying matches. “I think that If we are going to be building a team and really wanted to go to the Olympics, the players that we had were not experienced enough. “There were a lot of young players, maybe they were trying to build the team but it thinks experience counts a lot in games that involve two legs and then it’s a knockout. “A lot of experienced players were not part of the team and it actually added to the reason why we didn’t qualify.
The former Arsenal striker insists the country would have ended their wait for a spot at the international showpiece since 2008 if their strongest team was available.”On 100 per cent, I believe we would have qualify with the team we had at the World Cup. “If we have had the same roaster from the World Cup for the qualifiers, I can say we have a 90 per cent chance to qualify. I don’t know why the roaster changed, although we had different coaches.
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Enters Randy Waldrum, new coach, new beginnings, everyone else was forgiven and invited, including people who have been without clubs for 1 WHOLE YEAR, but Desire who is active in a top league like the French league is left out because she is a marked ‘man’ and then we struggle to score against who……CSKA WOMEN and UZBE-WHO….UZBEKISTAN…(dem dey play female football for those places..??) teams that Rivers Angels or Nasarawa Amazons will beat silly on a good day. An then you come here blaming Oparanozie for what she was never involved with…?
Go dig into the archives and read, man…and stop coming in public to say things you dont know…!
I thumbed you up because I see a lot of sense in your posts despite others not making any sense out of it.
There’s a cliche about football fans in Nigeria and there remarks against the football authorities which may not always be true.
Apparently,the lackadaisical approach to the Olympic qualifiers by our women was a message something wasn’t right.It’s easier for players to get away with murder because of the cliche “NFF is on the wrong”by Nigerian football fans.I think a decision might have been taken for the interest of the country.
Desire Oparanozie has not been productive as well of late for Nigeria amidst so much rancor resentment going on between certain players and the football authorities.
We may never get to know the truth because most times information are limited to the public.In other words,actions are taken sometimes to protect the interests of the country as against individuals whose personal grudges,negative energy may cost the country severely.
So why didnt the positive energy brought back to the team after Desire’s omission (and that of other key players) lead us beyond 2 out of 4 qualifying rounds of Tokyo Olympics Qualifiers. If to the fans “NFF is on the wrong”, then the NFF earned it. NOBODY…I MEAN NOBODY trusts the NFF since thieves started running our football after the government started pumping money into the NFA following our 1980 AFCON successes. And that is why in 2021, we are still fighting the same battles Keshi fought as a captain in the 80s. Inside sources have it that if not for Rohr’s insistence the likes of Ekong and Balogun would have been “suspended” from the National team for daring to ask for their bonuses (qualifiers and pre-tournament camp allowances) during the group stages of the 2019 AFCON. When the team was supposed to be training for their last group match vs Madagascar they where holding the holidaying federation officials for their rightfully earned monies. The allowances paid after that struggle is the last the team has received till date…almost 2 years later. Why also did you think Courtney Dike and IniAbasi Umotong where “controversially” left out of our 2019 WC and subsequent squads till today despite awesome performances in the friendlies where one of them even got a hattrick in one of the preparatory matches…did those ones too have Negative Energy???
And you think fans dont have the right to think “NFF is on the wrong” when issues crop up between national team players and the FA…??….especially after they have just demanded for their rights….???
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Oliseh and Co 2002 – disaster at the world cup.
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Adebowale Ogungbure & Alfred Omoefe and co – U23 national team 2003 – Non qualification for Athens 2004 olympics
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Yakubu, Agali and Co – Non qualification for 2006 WC
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Enyeama, Osaze and Co – Non qualification for 2012 AFCON.
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Money fight b4 r16 vs france – 2014 WC ouster
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Oliseh vs Enyeama, Emenike, Mikel, Ambrose – Non qualification for 2017 AFCON
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Desire Opranozie, Rita Chikwelu and Co – Non qualification for 2020 olympics.
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ALL THESE INSTANCES BOTHERED ON PLAYERS FIGHTING FOR WHAT IS DUE TO THEM…either in monetary terms, logistics or welfare terms.
2004, falcons refused to vacate their hotel in South Africa after winning the AWCON
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2016, Falcons protest on the streets of Abuja for payment of bonuses after winning AFCON
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2019, Falcons threaten to boycott R16 match vs Germany due to non payment of bonuses
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We keep shooting ourselves in the foot again and again with same problems and you thing fans are wrong when they say “NFF is on the wrong”…? funny enough in all these you will NEVER hear that NFF officials didnt get their own ‘undue’ dues….you will never hear that. They will get full executive estacodes, fly business class, 7 star hotels etc everytime they go on assignments with these teams.
Maybe NFF needs to sit down and do a proper self introspection. Moreover, it is the duty of the coach of the team to weed out any bad eggs hampering the progress of his team….not the NFF.
I am not one to support maladministration supposing there’s one.I am quite aware of happenings in Nigeria the corrupt system even in sports management,however,my point still remains the NFF may not be on the wrong all the time,though they have owed players wages which is not new in most African countries sometimes it may not entirely be the fault of the football authorities it could be from powers above.
It is easy to give figures events and facts but that does not still prove anything because if properly investigated you may realise it’s not exactly the way it seems.
Sometimes the football authorities may struggle without government support with little coming from sponsors,they may have accrued debts and other backlogs.I am not making excuses for poor management but I know things don’t work as it should in third world countries especially Africa.And there’s no evidence other than just a mere hear say that football authorities get there wages promptly.
I believe sometimes they may plan to get things sorted and needed players to be a little patient but a revolting leader who fails to have an empathy and turns a rebel could bring a negative energy to a team and this could lead to a temporary expulsion to bring Placid to a already struggling team because no team soars in chaos.
Pls lets the people in charge of Nigeria football organize the whole thing and let the best legs be invited to represent our nation