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Ibrahim Bio, the
minister of sports, has been commended by former Eagle, Emmanuel
Amuneke for changing the Super Eagles hotel to a much befitting one.

There had been
widespread criticisms over the choice of Hampshire Hotel Ballito, and
Bio moved swiftly to change the hotel to Protea at Richards Bay.

Amuneke, the 1994 Africa Player-of-the-Year wondered why Sani Lulu and the NFF would go for a hotel still under construction.

“They just don’t
know what to do anymore,” he said. “How can they lodge a national team
in a hotel that is yet to be completed with no fence and adequate
security and expect the players to stay focused and achieve their funny
semi final target?

We will not change
the way we talk on salient issues that affect our football. We are
stakeholders in this round leather game and they should stop deceiving
us with all these ‘no money’ issue.”

Amuneke’s teammate
in the Tunisia 1994 Nations Cup and USA‘94 World Cup, Thompson Oliha,
wondered why the federation did not go for a FIFA -approved hotel,
Protea Waterfront Hotel in the first place.

“I wonder why the
NFF wanted a kind of hotel which was not FIFA approved,” he said. “FIFA
have officially listed some hotels for the 32 teams to stay during the
World Cup, so why they went for the Hampshire Hotel beats my
imagination. They should have kept to FIFA’s regulation and
arrangements for the World Cup.”

Good for the Eagles

“It’s good the coach, Lars Lagerback, went for the new hotel which I hear is a better one than the previous,” Oliha maintained.

Joseph Dosu, goalkeeper for the Atlanta‘96 Olympic gold squad, expressed his relief that Bio changed the hotel.

“They said that
they booked the Hampshire hotel in the first place at the behest of
Shuaibu Amodu. Thank God he (Amodu) has come out to say he was not the
one that booked the hotel,” he said. “The NFF are just running our
football the way they understand it.

I’m happy the
minister waded in to unravel the mystery behind the whole thing. They
are just wasting the tax payer’s money. Now they have been dragged to
the Presidency, by the time one or two of them lose their jobs, the
rest will sit up and do what is right for the good of our football.
It’s just unfortunate”.

The Eagles will now be staying at the 4-star Protea Hotel at
Richards bay with, Coach Lagerback set to release a modified 30-man
list to beat FIFA’s deadline of Tuesday.