President General (Worldwide) of the Nigeria Foot­ball Supporters Club, Dr Rauf Ladipo has declared that the de­feat Nigeria suffered last weekend against Congo in the AFCON 2015 qualifier did not come to him as a surprise.
Ladipo, who spoke exclusively to Daily Sunsports said he saw the defeat coming, pointing out that the embarrassing home defeat was a direct fall out of the crisis rock­ing Nigerian football.
“ How could we have won when we did no home work before the match? How could we have won when we are busy fighting? That wouldn’t have been pos­sible. In this game, you just have to do your home work to win,” Ladipo stated.
The nation’s number one football supporter warned that Nigeria may not be in Morocco to defend the cup it won last year in South Africa. He pointed out that the Eagles would on Wednes­day face a South African team that is in high spirits after the emphatic 3-0 victory they secured away last Friday in Sudan.
“We may have been beating South Africa in the past, but on Wednes­day the truth is that the setting would be differ­ent. We are playing a South African side that is in a very high spirits, while our team is in low spirit.And if South Africa wins, then just like in 2012, we may not be at the Nations Cup.”
Ladipo was, how­ever, quick in stating that Nigerians know those to hold responsible if the Eagles fail to make it to Morocco, even as he urged those responsible for the NFF crisis to stop ridiculing the country for selfish reasons.
He stressed that the country can not afford to call FIFA’s bluff and face sanction. He urged those administering sports in the country to learn to respect FIFA statutes and do the right thing rather than always trying to do things in our own way.
“We are a member of FIFA and since we are, we must do things the way FIFA wants us to do it, except if we want to be isolated. We must respect the statutes of the world soccer governing body. Why must we do things differently. FIFA is not interested in who be­comes NFF president, all that FIFA is insisting on, is for us to do things in line with its statutes and I don’t think we should deviate from that. A situ­ation where some people want to rig themselves into the NFF through the backdoor is the prob­lem we are having with FIFA,” Ladipo said.

AFCON 2015 QUALIFIER: Eagles’ defeat not a surprise –Ladipo