Badminton coach foresees doom for Team Nigeria

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the coach said some of them who brought up most of the players who made the team to Maputo were dropped for some inexperienced coaches who have not paid their dues in the sport. He said the President of the Badminton Federation preferred to hand the responsibility to his kins-man, […]

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the coach said some of them who brought up most of the players who made the team to Maputo were dropped for some inexperienced coaches who have not paid their dues in the sport.

He said the President of the Badminton Federation preferred to hand the responsibility to his kins-man, coach Danjuma Fatautchi who lacks the capacity to lead the team.

The coach noted that going by the caliber of coaches who were selected to go to Maputo, he does not see the team coming close what it achieved in his days as coach of the national team.

He maintained that if coaches were selected based on merit, someone like him who has more than three players in the team should have been among the coaching crew.

According to the coach, there are enough signs that the team will not do well in Maputo but the BFN officials simply refused to understand.

He said: “For a long time now, there have been clear signals that the present coaching crew is not competent but tribalism has blinded the eyes of the badminton federation officials.

“When some of us led the players to Uganada for the Africa Championship, we returned with 4 gold, 5 silver and 7 bronze medals. The present crew went to Morocco and returned with 1 gold, 4 silver and three bronze. This year, they went to Kenya and dropped further by winning only 4 bronze medals.

The coach said this showed tremendous decline but the powers that be refused to see the need for change.

“We are waiting for them to come back. When they come, we shall compare notes”, he ended.