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Nigeria's soccer chief admits Super Eagles failure

Xinhua, March 31, 2016 Adjust font size:

Nigeria's soccer chief Amaju Pinnick on Wednesday said the federation did everything humanly possible for Nigeria to qualify for AFCON 2017.

Pinnick told a news conference in Abuja, the country's capital city that it was rather unfortunate their efforts failed to yield fruits.

He said the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) would now focus on ensuring that the team qualified for the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia.

The NFF president assured that the federation would utilize all available FIFA international day windows to make the team better.

Pinnick said he would have prevailed on Chad not to withdraw but it was not possible, adding "luck was not on our side".

The NFF president said he was glad that the Super Eagles were still among the best on the continent and were in line for qualification for the 2018 World Cup.

Pinnick, however, said he was very sure that a good future was ahead for the Super Eagles.

Nigeria has failed to feature for the second straight time in the AFCON under the leadership of Pinnick.

Egypt is now in pole position to feature at Gabon 2017 after it beat Nigeria 1-0 to move to seven points from three matches. Endit