Head coach of Nigeria’s women senior national team, Florence Omagbemi, has said African teams will do better in international tournaments, if CAF provides more competitions for clubs and national sides.
Omagbemi made history, by becoming the second woman, to win the African Women Cup of Nations as a player and coach, after the Super Falcons beat Cameroon 2-1, to win this year’s edition.
The 41-year-old who had won four African titles as player, said: “If we want to compare our standard of play with the European teams. It is not all about the Nations Cup.
“Teams that participate at the Nations Cup will have a good level of performance with all other teams. But after the Nations Cup, what next for women in Africa.
“I’m speaking out on behalf of Nigeria and other Africa continent. Coming out to the press conferences all the time, we hear different stories about how different federation are struggling for support to get their teams’ ready in women football.
“Now we are done with the Nations Cup. We want to focus again and see how we can prepare this teams for a world cup stage. When the African teams are been represented outside at the world stage at the World Cup and Olympics.
“It is all about Africa and not about Cameroon and Nigeria. If we have three teams coming out of Africa. We want to support all teams because that will be a great impact other countries and will support and encourage them.
“I will want to use this opportunity to advise the federations in Africa to do more for their women’s’ teams. We want to try and develop the women’s game.
“We want to try and develop the game. The more competitions we have against ourselves the better for us, the same opportunity we have to improve their performance level just like with the Cameroonian team.
“We are looking beyond Africa now. And that why I want to plead with Caf to give the women more opportunity to compete for more and not just with the Nations Cup.
“Because women lifetime in the game is different from the men. Having played Nations Cup two years, we are looking at four years time for the Women’s World Cup.
“If can engage them more in and out and try to organize more competitions for the women and we will see everyone around.
“We don’t want to play the Nations in two years, and the next two years we are not going to see most of these girls anymore.
“It is not only for Nigeria but for Cameroon, Kenya, Ghana and all other countries who will want more competitions to prepare them for the world stage.”
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