Bamaiyi Anangba, the Nasarawa State Commissioner for Youths and Sports, on Wednesday said internal strife affected Nasarawa United Football Club’s chances of winning the 2016/2017 Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL).
Anangba told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lafia that when he resumed as a commissioner he immediately realised that some factors were affecting the team’s performance.
He said the worst of these factors was internal strife, leading to many good players not being featured in matches and thereby creating an exodus of players from the team.
“The season was quite a challenging one. I came in when the team was almost battling with relegation.
“When I came in, we noticed some little challenges. We noticed that Nasarawa United had a very rich cream of players who were not being used.
“It got to a stage that almost 11 players left the club. We also noticed that the players were divided among themselves into factions.
“These issues affected the club’s overall season performance,’’ the Youths and Sports Commissioner said.
He said this led to his ministry’s officials, the club’s management and the representatives of the team’s players to sit down to iron out their differences.
Anangba said that this led to an improvement in the Lafia-based club’s performances, especially in the home matches.
“After we sat down and resolved, there was a great improvement especially in the home matches.
“Not only that however, we also improved in away matches by securing away draws and even an away win,’’ he said.
Anangba said all hands are now on deck however to ensure no negative factor influenced the team’s performance in the 2017/2018 season.
He assured that all issues concerning players’ welfare would be swiftly resolved.
The commissioner also said efforts were in top gear to ensure that the state-owned female football club, Nasarawa Amazons Football Club of Lafia, are motivated to win honours this season.
He said they were working towards the team emerging champions at the upcoming Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) Super Four competition.
“We are doing all we can to motivate the girls to come back home with the trophy.
“We have been runners-up for a while. I believe we will not fail to win this time around.
“We will ensure that the state government takes care of all issues concerning the players to guarantee success,’’ Anangba said.(NAN)