<\/p>\n
President Goodluck Jonathan says Nigeria’s \u00a0exploits at last month’s African Nations Championship in South Africa is a prove that\u00a0efforts being put into re-branding the Nigerian Football League are yielding positive\u00a0results.<\/p>\n
The president, who made the statement during a reception held in honour of the home based Super Eagles in Abuja said the team’s\u00a0\u00a0impressive performance added to a memorable season for\u00a0Nigerian football, starting with victories at both the 2013 African Cup\u00a0of Nations and the FIFA Under-17 World Cup competitions.<\/p>\n
”Although there is still much more work to be done, it is\u00a0gratifying to note that, today, our league is ranked among the best in
\nAfrica.<\/p>\n
”I keenly followed your performance from the\u00a0group stage up to the last 3rd place match. I noted that you epitomized\u00a0the true _never-say-die_ Nigerian spirit, especially in the match\u00a0against Morocco’s Atlas Lions where you came from a 3-goal deficit to\u00a0win the match against all expectations.”<\/p>\n
”You may not have won the Championship, but you performed\u00a0gallantly, competed fairly and made all Nigerians proud. You also
\nproduced the tournament’s Most Valuable Player and, today, some of you\u00a0are being sought after by renowned football clubs around the world.\u00a0As\u00a0the coach has confirmed, some of you may make our team to the FIFA World\u00a0Cup in June this year.” The president said.<\/p>\n
The president said Nigerians were proud of the team and urged them to remain committed, adding that the glory and honour they brought to the country was\u00a0appreciated.<\/p>\n
Jonathan\u00a0commended the\u00a0technical team for their dedication in preparing the team for the tournament and appreciated the supporters’s club for their ”unflagging inspiration” to all Nigeria’s national teams.<\/p>\n
In appreciation for their efforts, each member of the team was rewarded with one million naira (N1,000,000). The head coach, Stephen Keshi, one-point-five million (N1,500,000) while his three assistants were given a million naira (N1,000,000) each. None coaching staff of the Super Eagles were also rewarded with five hundred thousand (N500,000) naira each.<\/p>\n
By Demola Aluko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Goodluck Jonathan says Nigeria’s \u00a0exploits at last month’s African Nations Championship in South Africa is a prove that\u00a0efforts being put into re-branding the Nigerian Football League are yielding positive\u00a0results. The president, who made the statement during a reception held in honour of the home based Super Eagles in Abuja said the team’s\u00a0\u00a0impressive performance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[84,60],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1829"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1833,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions\/1833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}