The Director General of Delta Sports Commission, Festus Ohwojero, wants the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) to borrow a leaf from its European counterpart, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), which has promised to commit one billion euros (£830m) to women’s football over the next six years to make it the most played team sport by women in Europe.The European governing body said yesterday that it will use money from “competition revenues and UEFA investment” to distribute to national team competitions, club competitions, and national associations.
UEFA added that it wants to make Europe “the home of the world’s top players” with six fully professional leagues and 5,000 fully professional players across the continent.Ohwojero told The Guardian, yesterday, that CAF should emulate UEFA and move fast to save women football in Africa from its present state.“If UEFA is thinking of injecting a whopping one billion euros into women’s football to make it the most played team sport by women in Europe, I think CAF should take a cue from it and improve the standard of women’s football in Africa,” Ohwojero said.“I have been following women’s football in Africa since the maiden FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991, and I have not seen much difference in terms of supporting or promoting it. “From Nigeria to Ghana and many other African countries, the story is the same because women’s football seems to be facing the same problems ranging from lack of infrastructure, poor wages, and underfunding.“I agree that in Africa, we still manage to discover great talents from time to time, who against all odds, have been able to withstand their counterparts from different parts of the world.