Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung has described Nigeria’s participation in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers as a ‘waste of money’.
He said Nigeria does not need to participate in the World Cup if the nation cannot win the tournament.
The Sports Minister said this on Friday in an interview with Voice of America.
According to him, Nigeria should only participate in competitions like the African Nations Cup and the Commonwealth games they are guaranteed of winning.
Dalung said, “The cup that we can win is the African Cup of Nations.
“There is nothing again that will take us to another man’s balcony in the name of the World Cup. We already have the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. For these, we can attend such meets.
“But I am opposed to the World Cup. We don’t agree to it. Conspiracy in the World Cup is too much.
“We are here suffering from hunger and we don’t have money for such things.
“There is the issue of bribery and favouritism, there is also the issue of corruption before you are even given the hosting rights.
“That is why, even if we try many times, once it gets into the politics of the game, we can never win.
“That was why this year, we had to tackle him (FIFA President, Ginani Infantino) and we said, ‘you , Infantino, if you win this election, you have to give us a position.
“If not, we shall not agree.’ And you see, by the grace of God, he even picked an African as his Secretary-General, that means one day, we shall get to really lick the honey, that also means he has started taking honey and rubbing on our lips,” he added.
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