Former Super Eagles mercurial attacker, Mutiu Adepoju has debunked stories that he scored most of the goals during his playing days with the support of juju or voodoo powers.
In an online chat with SFCOBA 94set, the former Racing Satander of Spain and 3SC star also spoke on a variety of football issues. According to him, school boys football was very pivotal in the development of Nigerian football.
Back in the days, we had secondary schools in different parts of the country like St. Finbarrs College and St Gregory’s College that contributed talented footballers such as late Stephen Keshi and Nduka Ugbade to the development of Nigerian football.
He lamented the present state of Nigerian football to apparent apathy to the development of local football. According to the former general manager of 3SC, the bane of Nigerian football is that whilst football in Nigeria is seen as a public relations tool or social services, it is taken as serious business in other parts of the world.
” Football is taken as serious business in other climes. Most of the teams are either community based or operated as private businesses and profit oriented. Unfortunately, it is not like that. And unless we change the narratives and change our mindsets, the state of football would remain stuck to its present level,” Adepoju, famously called ‘headmaster’, said.
On the wild insinuations that he had incisions on his head to help him score goals, Adepoju who is presently the Last Liga ambassador to Nigerian football, was renowned for his uncanny abilities to score several important goals with his head. He was quick to laugh it off as a figment of some people’s mind.
” It is funny when I hear the insinuations that I had incisions, what we call in Yoruba language as ‘gbere’ on my head to help me score goals,” he responded.
“My abilities to score goals with my head is a God-given gift which I worked on and of course, improved upon. I am grateful to God for this gift,” he added.
He disclosed that his seemingly early retirement from the national team in 2002 and eventually club football in 2005, was as a result of a serious knee injury he sustained while playing actively. Adding that realised he could no longer run faster and twist and turn like he used to do after the surgery on the injury.
