New Telegraph 
The Senor Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Grassroots Sports Development, Mr. Adeyinka Adeboye spoke to Saturday Telegraph’s Deputy Editor, ADEKUNLE SALAMI, on various issues relating to the just concluded Africa Cup of nations in Morocco. Excerpts:
How will you rate the standard of the just concluded Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco?
We are developing in Africa but there were little mistakes by the referees in the semis and final matches. People are always condemning referees but its not easy to take decisions.
In our match against Egypt there were calls in our favour. People will not see it that way. It was a balanced match between Nigeria and Morocco. Anybody could have won. The standard of those matches shows Africa is improving.
I can surely boast of that. The entire competition witnessed a brilliant display of football on the continent. Even the so-called lesser teams demonstrated good display at the tournament. The defending champions were unable to make it to the semis while Cameroon also fell by the side. It was a big plus for Africa.
What about the preliminaries and overall display in the competition?
The preliminaries showed we have world-class players. Today, when mentioning players all over the world, you must mention some players from Africa.
The performances, the courage, the confidence , the character of all players from all African countries that participating were commendable and I can tell you authoritatively that Africa has come a long way in football. I’m happy for all the countries that participated and I know we will get better with subsequent editions.
How will you rate the Super Eagles in the competition?
The Super Eagles showed that they are a world-class team. Their discipline, attitude, character showed the whole world that Nigeria is a good footballing nation. They played together as a team.
And don’t forget we have a coach (Eric Chelle) that understands the players very well, he knows how to handle the players; he understands the implication of every moment in the game or the tournament. This has shown the world that African football, once you have a committed team and players that play like a family, you can get there.
Super Eagles have shown the whole world that they are the best. I give kudos to the NFF for giving us Eric Chelle. Big kudos to the national sports commission for this. Super Eagles showed the whole world that they are ready for any challenge going forward.
Are you saying the coach should remain with the Super Eagles?
If you are good administrator, you just have to retain Chelle. I’ve been in this system for more than 40 years, what the coach has done so far was enough to show that we should allow him to continue.
We should allow him to stay. He has known the players and he will invite more younger ones to fit into the game and his style. Continuity matters a lot. If we leave the coach, I’m sure he will do better with the team because we saw a good chemistry in the team.
Tell us about the lessons learnt from the just concluded event.
With what I saw in Morocco, I’m highly impressed with their facilities, with their character and attitude of their fans. It shows that we have a long way to go when we look at their facilities in Morocco.
They have world class facilities. And we need to be concentrated on grassroots development. We need to work seriously hard to get it right because the facilities in Morocco are comparable to European facilities and not an African country.
Morocco is one of the best African countries because they’ve done a lot and Nigeria needs to learn from them. My experience also showed that we should trust in our administrators. The Moroccan government is in charge, it’s hard before you see any individual owning a stadium.
It’s all owned by Morocco government. It gives them opportunity for employment, they employ a lot of staff. I shed tears when I saw the facilities at the stadium in Rabat.
My God! How do you expect these people to rate us? Are you going to carry your shoulders high when your facilities are below world standard? We need to learn from what they’ve done based on what we have also seen.
I will engage Mr. President on this and I am positive that the NSC leadership under Shehu Dikko will flow with me in this drive to raise the standards of facilities in Nigeria.
