Former Super Eagles goalkeeper, Peterside Idah has disclosed that it would take Nigeria more than 40 years to host the FIFA World Cup.
Idah cited the country’s poor maintenance culture of its sports facilities, which he said has affected some of the quality stadiums in the country.
The 49-year-old in an interview on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily, noted that the only available stadium, where good football can be played at the moment, remains the Godswill Akpabio International stadium in Uyo.
He emphasized that neglecting these facilities could limit Nigeria’s ability to compete on the global stage, not only as a future World Cup host but also as a genuine challenger in a variety of sporting disciplines.
“On record presently, the only playing field which we have is a grass stadium and it is the Uyo stadium, but 20 anything(years) is still very long maybe in the next 40 years, we would have had some kind of stability,” he said.
“We have facilities everywhere like in Port Harcourt where I live in Port Harcourt now, we have three stadiums in Port Harcourt, and we play well. This stadium must be working. We have the civic centre that had everything such as the swimming pool but these facilities are not being maintained. And once these facilities are not maintained how do you expect us to firstly chunk out athletes and be able to contest or contain the world. We have to go back to basics.”
Nigeria last hosted a global football tournament back in 2009, which was the U-17 FIFA World Cup with Switzerland emerging as champions and Golden Eaglets taking the runner-up spot.
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