Board members and the organising committee of the lower division, Nigeria National League (NNL), have been called to task over the poor state of the pitch at MKO Abiola Stadium, Abeokuta.
Leading the verbal query hauled at the NNL for approving such an untidy surface for matches in Nigeria’s second-tier league is the coach of Inter Lagos FC, Gabriel Ezema.
He was full of disappointment and lamentations on Wednesday, not only because of his team’s 2-1 loss away to Gateway United of Abeokuta, but also due to what he called desecration of an iconic personality.
He explained that, aside from losing the crucial game, it was quite disheartening seeing a stadium named after a Nigerian hero left in such a dilapidated condition and spreading a bad image about the country.
Ezema, though, went on to pick positives from the match, especially seeing his side score first, and then fight fruitlessly all the way for an equaliser on the bumpy surface in The Rock City.
Ezema moaned, “Absolutely, the bad pitch had a negative effect on our game. It’s a very disappointing thing that we are still playing on this kind of pitch in Nigeria.
“This is the second-tier league in Nigeria, and this is MKO Abiola Stadium … a very historic stadium in Nigeria.
“Surprisingly, this pitch is still approved for football. I think this pitch should not even be approved for any sport at all.
“It really affected the way we played. We tried to adapt as much as we could, but we lost. Well, this is football, some days you don’t win.
“We just have to look up to the remaining five matches we have and try to make the best of them.”
Coach Ezema consoled himself in knowing that Inter Lagos are still standing joint-top of the NNL table with their local rivals, Ikorodu City, but admitted they have to keep fighting hard all the way till the last game of the season.
“We are still very much in contention for a place in the play-off,” the soft-spoken tactician pointed out.
“The positive thing for us from this defeat is that we kept fighting till the end, which is a plus.
“Much as we didn’t win, it just tells us, on a different day, if we keep fighting like that, we will win. “
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