Better late than never I guess. After 30 years, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari will finally fulfill promises he made to the 1985 U-17 World Cup winning Nigerian soccer team. This specific team won the first ever FIFA U-17 World Cup, which was played in China.
Such promises made by Buhari include a trip to the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, houses, scholarships and streets to be named after them. It should be noted that these players did go to the World Cup in 1986, but they didn’t receive the rest of that until now. Out of the entire team, the most successful from this first U-17 World Cup winning team was Jonathan Akpoborie, who had over a half decade stint in the Bundesliga in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
Now to be fair to President Buhari, there is a reason why those promises weren’t fulfilled. Nigeria had won the U-17 World Cup in August 1985. A little over two weeks after their win, Buhari and his government was overthrown in a coup. Obviously, those leading the coup would not want to spend time fulfilling promises of the person they overthrew so here we are. Buhari became President of Nigeria once again this year and thus can finally fulfill those promises.
(BBC)
