Super Eagles Coordinator Emmanuel Attah has called on Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) to take the issue of bad pitches in Africa very serious as it could hamper the results of matches if care is not taken.
Speaking on the backdrop of 2-2 score draw between Eagles and the Lone Star of Liberia in Monrovia on Saturday, the former FCT Football Federation boss revealed that the poor condition of the Samuel Doe Stadium really affected the performance of the Nigerian team in the match.
“Confederation of Africa Football should do something drastic about the issue of bad pitches in Africa. It is not good for our football because most of our players ply their football trade in Europe and play on good pitches and you don’t expect them to come to Africa and get injured while playing on bad pitches after coming home to help their countries. This may eventually ruin their career. The performance of some of these players may be hindered by these bad pitches to the detriment of the nations they play for,” he said.
“ So CAF must consider this issue very seriously because it affects the quality of play and the overall performance of teams in the continent.”
He is, however, confident of Eagles’ victory over Liberia when the two teams meet next month in Nigeria. “We wanted to win in Liberia to compensate President Goodluck Jonathan for supporting us and personally visiting us in our training session before we departed for Monrovia and we also planned to win and make soccer loving Nigerians happy too. But we won’t cry over a split milk. Better still, the 2-2 draw has put us in a strong position to finally pick the qualification ticket for the 2013 Africa Nations Cup finals in South Africa,” he added.
