Nigeria, Italy settle for 2-2 draw

Nigeria and Italy settled for a 2-2 draw in a pulsating friendly match played at the Craven Cottage in London on Monday.

Giuseppe Rossi opened scoring for Italy in the 12th minute before Bright Dike equalised for the African champions in the 35th minute off a header from Shola Ameobi’s shot.  Ameobi who plays for Newcastle in the English Premier League then gave his fans something to hold on to for the night when he shot Nigeria into the lead in the 39th minute as Nigeria led through the break. When play resumed, Italy went to work and earned the equaliser in the 47th minute through Giacchierini Immanuele.

All further attacks and counterattacks in the entertaining match failed to produce more goals for the countries already through to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Sports Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi has said that the country will undertake a total overhaul of the full marketing possibilities of the Super Eagles and other national teams. The move is to ascertain the real worth of the national teams and place the proper value on them.

The minister, who spoke with our correspondent in Calabar shortly after the Eagles booked a place for Brazil 2014 World Cup, said it was saddening that the national teams have been undervalued over the decades to the detriment of the country’s interest.

He said, “We have to carry out a thorough examination of the values of the teams. We have to evaluate the teams properly to ascertain the right value of each of the teams – Eagles, U-23, Falcons, U-17 and the others – and be sure that the country is getting full financial value of our teams.

“We have gone past the eras where people can just decide what they think are the financial worth of our teams and then pay out peanuts in the name of sponsorship. These teams are certainly worth more than the value placed over them now.”

Abdullahi stated that a special technical team will be set up shortly with marketing experts to carry out detail independent assessment of the teams and their worth. The minister who was clearly piqued by the fact that the Nigeria Football Federation is broke in a year they won the African Nations Cup said that the heavy dependence on government budget to survive by the FA has to end.

It is believed that the technical experts separate financial evaluation for the teams may likely translate to separate packages for each of the national teams. All the teams are currently lumped together now as a unit.

NFF officials have cried out over cash crunch since the country won the African cup in February which has meant that all the national coaches are owed several months of their wages. It is understood that one of NFF major partners owes the federation about N170m in unpaid sponsorship money.