Managing Director of the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority (NDBDA) Rivers State, Prince Ebitimi Amgbare has stated that Africa football has greatly improved, judging from the high level of play exhibited among the players at the just concluded 2025 Africa Nations Cup held in Morocco.
Making this remarks while fielding questions from our reporter in Port Harcourt recently, Amgbare noted that it was not in doubt that virtually all the participated players at the AFCON were at their best giving the advantage of the availiability of a world class sporting facilities provided by the host nation Morocco.
“Truly, I need to commend the efforts of the host nation, Morocco for providing a World Class facilities that made the African players exhibit some fine football artistries we used to see them play in their various clubsides in Europe”, said he.
When quizzed about the officiating as regards to the game between the Atlas Lions of Morocco and Super Eagles of Nigeria, the outspoken Amgbare said that he will not like to join the debate on the assessment of the referee conduct but maintained that by and large, ‘the Eagles were able to overcome the challenges of the suspicious officiating, though blamed the players for failing to convert some of the scoring chances that came their way before the game was dragged into penalty shoot out which he said, could be anybody’s game’.
“For me, the suspicious officiating was not too many and clear for everybody to understand because it was highly technical but all same, both sides Eagles and Atlas Lions of Morocco need to blame themselves for their inability to convert some scoring chances that came their way during the course of the match”.
The one time Bayelsa State Sports Commissioner nevertheless, seized the opportunity to call on Confederation of African Football (CAF) officials, as a way forward, to do well to continue to improve in raising the standard of African Football by making sure that undue advantage giving to the host nation is quickly eliminated to the barest minimum so that the aim of using the platform to determine the best team in Africa would not be defeated at the end of the day.
