'Nobody took responsibility' - Nigerians attack Gusau's NFF as Italy's football chiefs resign over World Cup disgrace

Nigerians are not smiling after Fabrizio Romano confirmed that Paolo Maldini has signed on as Italy's new national team technical director, in a fresh reset of the Azzurri's football project.

'Agreement done and confirmed for Maldini to lead new Italy project, with Giovanni Malagò as FIGC president,' Romano posted.

The appointment marks the latest chapter in a dramatic shake-up of Italian football's leadership, one triggered by Italy's failure to reach a third successive World Cup. 

But rather than focusing purely on Italy's rebuild, the fallout has reignited a much more uncomfortable conversation back home, with Nigerians pointedly asking why nobody at the NFF has ever taken the same responsibility after the Super Eagles' own back-to-back World Cup misses.

The comparison has been impossible for fans to ignore. One post capturing the mood read: 'Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup for the 3rd time in a row: Buffon resigned as the head of the delegation of the Italian national team, the Italian Football president resigned, and Gattuso, the head coach of Italy, also resigned.

'Nigeria failed to qualify for the World Cup for the 2nd time in a row. Nobody in the NFF took responsibility or resigned. In Nigeria, when people in positions of power fail, instead of resigning, they fight and even kill to continue their show of incompetence, and some members of the public applaud them.'

Others framed it as a symptom of a much deeper cultural problem within Nigerian sports governance.

 'Nothing prolongs poor leadership like a culture that mistakes blind loyalty for patriotism,' one fan wrote. 'When failure carries no consequences, it tends to repeat itself.'

For plenty of fans, the frustration isn't just about accountability in principle, it's about a cycle they feel powerless to break. 

'They will do worse and embezzle more next time, why?' one fan asked. 'We would talk and no action, and after making it into a Twitter meme for two days we move on and they do the worst. Rinse and repeat.'

Not everyone was ready to pile on immediately, though. Some fans urged a bit more patience before passing final judgment. 'This is the second time that Nigeria missed out, let's judge them after the third time,' one supporter argued. 'They have families.'

Others pushed back on the idea that resignations alone are the answer, pointing to Italy's own struggles as proof that changing faces doesn't automatically fix a broken system. 

'Let me play devil's advocate a bit,' one fan wrote. 'Yes, they resigned, and it looks like they are the 3rd set of Italian administrators to resign, and they have still not qualified for the World Cup. Simply means resignation doesn't fix the problem.'

For many, though, the conversation kept circling back to a much bigger structural issue, the sheer lack of any mechanism to remove underperforming officials in Nigerian football in the first place.

'My question is why do these incompetent people in the NFF wield so much power that nobody can remove them,' one fan asked. 'Is it that there is no higher authority to remove them and elect competent people? Why is it so complicated? It's saddening — our football will not develop if this continues.'

The NFF is currently led by Ibrahim Gusau, and as things stand, no resignations or leadership changes have followed Nigeria's failure to qualify for a second consecutive World Cup.