Nobody can take my mandate says chikelue Iloenyosi

Former Super Eagles defender Chikelue Iloenyosi played professionally for NIPOST, Vasco Dagama, Udoji United and many more clubs.

In an exclusive with Ihesiulo Amarachi, he speaks about his plans and aspiration for Anambara Football Association which he now heads, and sports in general.

What do you think are the challenges of sports in Anambara State, and how do you intend to tackle them as chairman of the Anambara Football Association.

Sports in Anambara State is something i am driving by my passion, to come and help my people.

Anyone who has been running football association nationally should think first about the grassroots and the development of football in Anambara State.

I am coming to Anambara State Football Association not because i am the only right candidate or because i am connected.

No, its because i am driven by my passion for development of football at the grassroots level.

The first step to be taken in Anambra State is that we have a lot of aggrieved parties in football.

It’s my duty to bring all the stakeholders together so that we can come with one voice in order to achieve our goals and from there we go to the next level.

There was controversy leading to the announcement of the final date for this election. Many would have backed out during those troubled times. What kept you going?

If you see the Anambara State election you will see everything is wrong. Because we have been in football, we know the rules and regulations.

When you have a candidate that is not qualified the opponent has the opportunity to punch by technicalities.

As a professional, i used my technical knowledge. i wrote my petitions and i put down salient points and he couldn’t defend it.

Don’t forget that the appeal committee was very disturbed that the caretaker committee chairman who resigned to contest the election was the one who put all the delegates, was the one who brought all the funds for them, was the one who paid tax clearance for them for three years. This is what they call electoral fraud.

This is not supposed to be found in the electoral process of the Anambra Football Association, if taking up he can’t buy delegates to be in your pocket for the election.

If you know you wanted to contest why did you accept the caretaker committee chairman position?

You must know what you are doing to others to archieve your goal. i congratulated him for his contributions on the caretaker committee to make sure it derived some good goals for the Football Association.

If you want to be the chairman of the FA there are a lot of stakeholders in Anambra State that you are supposed to bring together and dialogue and say you have done so and so, Chikeleu let us put heads together and make sure things work out.

But you haven’t done that. We can’t impose you to come and be the FA chairman in Anambra State.

That’s why i came out and by the Grace of God everything is working fine.

I haven’t seen any reason why i am the sole candidate, unopposed. Anambra guidelines say single majority.

They never knew i could get one vote because he was the one who put all the delegates.

They are not loyal to me but to him, it’s totally electoral fraud and it has to be looked into.

The NPFL is yet to begin if elected you will become a key shareholder with an amplified Voice for football in Anambra and Nigeria.

I am already elected. No one can stop my mandate. God has already made it happen because the NPLF is about to start. it’s a a very good one.

Unfortunately we don’t have anyone from the Anambra State team but i want to assure that for me to be there as the Anambra State Chairman, ok look at under-17 is on, under-20 is on.

Of all the people in our grassroots nobody from the state.

You find out that all other players are from Enugu and other states no one is protecting them.

You must make sure that the FA is doing a tournament to have a very good grassroots development football so that the national team will have a lot of people from your state playing for the country.

In 1977 Anambra State was the first to win the world through CKC Onitsha, but today we don’t have a single player from Anambra playing in the national team.

We are the higest hub of football in Nigeria, the likes of Sylvanus Opara, Kenneth Abana, Innocent Abana and so on. we had people who were born and brought up in Anambra State but now the reverse is the case.

Football development is about interest and driven by passion. i have it and have time to put back to the system.

Looking at the Super Eagles squad we hardly find home-based players getting regular playing time in , the team. As you said what approach would you recommend to improve the quality of football in Anambra State?

I have already spoken to the coach. Why Ezenwa wasn’t invited for the friendly game was because Covid-19 already affected the Nigerian Football league; so we are not playing but we are about to play qulifiers; he was invited.

It is not supposed to be only Ezenwa. We are playing the league to build our home-based team. We are supposed to have six or seven players in the home-based team.

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But by the special grace of God the coach is looking into it to make sure that things work out for the Eagles’ home-based team to get it right.

What’s your view on the management of football clubs by state government vs management by an individual? 

Management for individual is very very important i.e private ownership under the situation of the country is hard if the private owner doesn’t have the capacity to do some basic things such as payment of salaries, welfare and so on.

This will affect the team but the Government team at the other hand they are capable and at the same time not capable because when you have people running the club in the government team who are politicians who are not football minded people it’s going to be hard for them.

The minister of Sports has made it mandatory that any team that will be coming to the NPLF must have a guaranteed amount of N200 million, so that when you are not paying your players the NPLF will have where to get money to pay them.

Remember that these players don’t have any other means of livelihood; it’s just football. if they have injuries no insurance your tax payer money is what they pay when you are playing if you are no more playing or have an issue with your club that’s the end and your family won’t understand you are having a hard time.

It’s very important that these grantee money is available so that players can have their wages.