Warri Wolves yesterday gained promotion to NPFL after a hard-fought victory over Crown FC. In an emotional interview, the club chairman, Chief Neville Ambakederemo attributes the historic moment to hard work and expressed gratitude to the state governor, sports commission, and everyone who supported them, saying, ‘We didn’t just qualify, my joy is that we’re going to play in the finals”.
Excerpts…..
Q. Congratulations. How would you describe this hard fought victory and the qualification into the NPFL ?
A. I am short of words, first and foremost I give God all the glory. Then I must thank the state governor, the executive chairman of the sports commission and everybody that has come to support us. The management of the team, the players are not left out, we didn’t just qualify my joy is that we are going to play in the finals. You can see our hosting rights didn’t qualify for us, we fought hard for it.
Q. What is your expectations for this club with this promotion?
A. I won’t lie to you we need to go back to the drawing board. The team needs proper overhauling even a layman can see it. I think that is what we are going to do. We are going to sit down with all the stakeholders, everybody will be involved. All deltans in football will have a say?
Q. It took Warri wolves four years to be able to come this far. What was your experience during those four years?
A. I think last 2 seasons, we came second in our group but we didn’t qualify, we just came for playoffs. Last season we fought hard as well but this season to be fair the immediate past DG called me to his office and said Neville this season we’re not just going to participate. I have a plan on how we are going to qualify for the super 8. So I called the coach and management team and our conclusion was that all our home games must be won. Then we go away and get two wins then maybe a draw or two then we will qualify and by God’s grace throughout the season we only lost one game.
Q. How will you rate your Crown FC
A. Extremely high, extremely, Crown is a very good team. Extremely high, very good team. With this win I am even surprised we overran them, the only loss we had in this season was to Crown.
Q. You’re playing the finals against Wikki Tourists, what are your expectations?
A. Tough game, very tough game. Wiki tourists are also a very good team, they won us in quarter finals in the federation cup but I think this is an avenue to revenge, to take our pound of flesh from them by God’s grace.
