Football Breakfast in Atlanta Georgia Without a Parcel Bomb
By Kasali Obanoyen
At a quiet Atlanta café, two Sahel Sports comrades — one jet-lagged from Washington, D.C., the other fully caffeinated from Atlanta’s hustle — met for what should have been an ordinary breakfast. And, thankfully, unlike darker chapters of Nigeria’s past, no strange package arrived at the table.
For once, breakfast remained breakfast — not a reenactment of October 1986, when the nation learned the hard way that even the innocent morning meal could become fatal for a journalist as towering as Dele Giwa.
But the conversation on this peaceful morning? Ah — that one carried its own explosions.
For hours, spoons clicked, eggs went cold, and the World Cup Draw dissected itself on the table as both men bemoaned Nigeria’s absence from a tournament now priced so high that its tickets are “kissing the angels in the sky.” A World Cup out of the reach of the masses — and out of reach of the Super Eagles themselves.
Then came the central puzzle:
Why was the NFF President smiling and shaking hands in D.C., when he should be rallying a grieving football nation and assuring them that AFCON 2025 in Morocco will be the rebirth we desperately need?
Or huge “kokoko” gifts from angry football lovers all over the land .
The NFF should pay the poor coach to avoid any excuses of not meeting the set target for the team, and the coaching crew and the usual unexplained accompanying delegation
One insider — who pleaded anonymity for obvious reasons — offered a sharper verdict. According to him, the NFF President “may not enjoy peaceful breakfasts any time soon,” not because of parcel bombs, but because Nigerians everywhere are boiling with bitterness after missing two World Cups in a row.
His rant gathered steam and satire in equal measure.
He mocked the endless missteps in our football leadership, comparing them to “chefs who burn water yet insist on running the kitchen.” He wondered aloud why those who have failed so spectacularly still cling to their seats like life rafts.
And then came his closing jab — the kind that belongs in the editorial pages:
“Let them eat their breakfast, yes — but not be bombed out of existence.
Nigeria has already had enough needless explosions, literal and metaphorical.
What we need now is leadership, not fireworks.”
In the end, the only safe thing at that Atlanta table was the food.
The conversation, however, detonated every illusion that Nigerian football is anywhere near where it should be.
