Coach Kadiri Ikhana in Abuja on Monday reigned his position as head coach of the Nigerian senior women football team, the Super Falcons.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that his resignation came on the heels of his team's failure at this year’s African Women Championship (AWC) in Equatorial Guinea.
Ikhana told NAN that he resigned on his return from Malabo where his team had lost to Cameroon in the championship's third-place match on Sunday.
NAN reports that the Falcons had failed to defend the title they had won in South Africa in 2010 for the sixth time since 1998, after losing 0-1 to South Africa on Nov. 8.
Ikhana said he resigned on personal grounds, even though the target set for him in his contract with the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) was achieved at the tourney.
“I resigned over my failure to meet my personal target of lifting the trophy,” he said.
While expressing his apology to the nation over the team’s performance, the coach said he accepted full responsibility for the result.
NAN recalls that Kadiri was mandated in his contract signed on April 1, 2012, to among other things, lead the team to the 2012 AWC and ensure the team played in at least the semi-finals of the competition.
The coach said he had the personal desire of returning the trophy to Nigeria from the championship, noting: “this failure informed my decision to quit the stage’’.
Kadiri, however, said he would continue to support the development programme of the NFA as a Nigerian as he believed that the nation had the potential to take the centre stage in world football.
He pointed out that his resignation was a notice of resignation to the NFA in accordance with the contract agreement between the two parties.
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