Why it would take Nigeria 40 years to host FIFA World Cup – Idah

Peterside Idah, a former Super Eagles goalkeeper, has expressed his belief that Nigeria would require more than four decades to host the FIFA World Cup.

Idah pointed to the nation’s inadequate maintenance practices for sports facilities, which have negatively impacted the quality of stadiums in the country.

In an interview on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on Friday, the 49-year-old highlighted that the only stadium currently conducive for high-quality football is the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo.

He emphasized that the neglect of these facilities could not only hinder Nigeria’s potential as a future World Cup host but also impede its competitiveness on the global stage across various 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.