Blog

By Tony Ubani, in South Africa

FIFA president, Sepp Blatter said at the weekend that Nigeria’s failure to make an impact at the 2010 World Cup did not surprise him.

Blatter added that Nigeria and indeed Cote’d Iovire planned for failure when they chose to make changes to the managements of their teams two month to the World Cup.

“It would have been a miracle if Nigeria and Cote’d Ivoire had gone through.

“You cannot manage a national team when you coach two or three months before the competition,” said Blatter.

Nigeria hired Lars Lagerback, but the Swede coach failed to take Nigeria out of the group prelims, despite making a promise of taking the team to the semi-final..

This result left Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan fuming and he sacked all the national teams from FIFA events. He made a u-turn, but Nigeria Football Federation president Sanni Lulu, his first vice Amanze Uchegbulam and Taiwo Ogunjobi were gone in the aftermath. The Swiss-born Blatter downplayed referees mistake at the World Cup.

“We are bound by the best referees we have,” Blatter said. “We tried to get them on top but naturally referees are human beings and they commit errors like everybody.”

Blatter said it was not possible to judge this World Cup in comparison to others, but described it as “special”.

He said: “It was a World Cup on a new continent with a new culture and therefore it must be analysed on different levels, but if you look at the enthusiasm in Africa and also the repercussion in the world, if you look to the television audiences around the world, if you look to the fan-fests everywhere in the world then I have to say it was a special World Cup.”