Super Falcons defender Ashleigh Plumptre has urged Nigerian football authorities to hand the game over to “competent hands” or risk further decline, speaking out hours before Nigeria’s crunch playoff clash against South Africa on Thursday in Casablanca.
“Our football cannot continue to suffer because of the selfish interests of a few individuals,” Plumptre said. “Anyone found guilty of corruption, incompetence or deliberately sabotaging the growth of Nigerian football should be held accountable and removed from office. We need competent hands, transparency and accountability—not politics, favouritism and corruption. Save Nigeria football.”
Her comments come after a tournament that went badly wrong for both African heavyweights. Nigeria crashed out of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals with a 1-0 loss to Cameroon, while hosts Morocco beat Banyana Banyana 2-1 to end South Africa’s title defence.
The defeat cost both nations automatic qualification for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil. Now, Thursday’s losers will have their hopes extinguished completely. The winners move into the Inter-Confederation playoffs, the first of three hurdles left.
Six teams will contest that preliminary round. Two will advance to join four others who received byes into the final phase. From there, only three of six will book tickets to Brazil through single knockout matches.
It is a far cry from the quarter-final ambitions both sides arrived with. But with World Cup survival now on the line, Plumptre insists the focus must extend beyond the pitch to the boardroom.
“This battle is about pride, but also about the future,” she implied. “Nigerian football needs saving.”
