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FIFA Secretary-General Fatma Samoura has poured encomiums on the Super Falcons for their transcendental feat, after the team advanced to the second round of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup ongoing in Australia and New Zealand.
The most successful women football team in Africa qualified through to the last sixteen of the biggest women football tournament, after they picked a point from their last group game against Ireland on Monday evening in Brisbane.
An elated Samoura noted that the Super Falcons’ achievement at the mundial has brought about huge pride for women’s football, Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
Present at the visitation was Former CAF Media Committee Member and present NFF Executive Member Aisha Falode, who introduced the FIFA General Secretary to the players, Head of Nigerian Delegation and First-Vice President of the NFF, Felix Anyasi-Agwu, Babagana Kalli, Inuwa Shariff and RT. Hon. Margaret Icheen, all Executive Members of the NFF and NFF Head of Women’s Football, Hajia Aminat Daura.
“I am proud of your achievement. It’s good for Women’s Football in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
“I am also excited because, when FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced my name as the new FIFA Secretary-General, I was in Nigeria, working for the United Nations, so Nigeria is like a second home for me.
“Nigeria is living to expectations, as the leading soccer power house in Africa, including being the most consistent team from Africa, having qualified and participated in all the FIFA Women’s World Cup so far.
“I told the FIFA President recently that the gap between Women’s football in Africa and the rest of the world is getting narrow and so it seems we are going to have a women African team winning the World Cup, before the men does.
“You should continue to believe in yourselves and play as a team and be ready to lift the African flag higher in the tournament.” She concluded.
Four African teams namely Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco and Zambia qualified for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. While Copper Queens of Zambia are out of the tournament, Bayana Bayana and the Atlas Lionesses still have a game to play. The Super Falcons are the only African team to have qualified to the next round of the World Cup.
