Waldrum guided the Super Falcons to the round of 16 of the tournament, where they lost to England in a penalty shootout, despite the challenges.
By Kehinde Okeowo
Former Super Falcons head coach, Randy Waldrum, has claimed he led Nigeria to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand without a dedicated analyst or a scout.
He attributed this to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), which insisted he could only work with seven staff despite FIFA being responsible for paying the bonuses of a larger technical team.
Waldrum made this known in a now-trending video on X, where he also questioned the NFF over an alleged $960,000 received from FIFA for tournament preparations.
According to Waldrum, a source from the world football governing body informed him that every nation that participated in the tournament was given the money to prepare their team. The money, approximately N1.4 billion in Naira, was reportedly received by the NFF in October 2022 to support the team.
The American tactician lamented that despite receiving the huge sum, the NFF “could not even put the team in camp” prior to the World Cup and could not afford business-class tickets for the team.
He noted that corruption is never questioned in Nigeria, unlike in the US where people will seek to know how public funds are spent.
However, despite the challenges, Nigeria managed to reach the Round of Sixteen of the tournament, where they lost to England on a penalty shootout.
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Speaking in the viral video, Waldrum said, “I have a real close contact here in the US that is very connected with some of the board at FIFA.
“This person told me that in October, every country was given $960,000 from FIFA to prepare for the World, where is that money.”
He added, “If Nigeria got that money why didn’t we have a camp in November? We went to Japan, we flew in and played the game and went home…
“We wasted the last five days of that window to train.
“So, all these questions I have is where is this money? And the other thing I found out through my FIFA connections is that if countries don’t have the money to buy business class tickets for everybody, FIFA will fund the money and buy those tickets and just deduct it from the monies you get from FIFA after the World Cup.
“So there’s no excuse to say we didn’t have money to buy tickets and then we didn’t have camps. These are the kinds of things that the people of Nigeria don’t question. In the US, they would be questioned. If the US Soccer Federation was doing the same things, the US Soccer Federation would have to answer to it.
“FIFA also allows your technical staff up to 22 people. Well, we have only about eleven. So if FIFA will pay bonuses for up to 22 people, why don’t we have 22 people? I don’t have an analyst and I scout. Listen, the US has a scout in Europe, watching teams play in these exhibitions, in case they face them at the World Cup.
“We don’t even have scouts going with us to Australia. I don’t even have anybody to scout games. If we get out of our group, I don’t even have anybody to scout games in other groups. Everything I have to do is on videos and what I can pick up online.”
