Media officer of Dolphins Football Club, China Acheru, has called for more positive reporting as the club continues in its quest to win the 2012 CAF Champions League.
This comes in the light of a publication by a weekly national sports newspaper on how troubled the Dolphins team was for their trip to Malabo last weekend in the CAF Champions League.
Acheru described the publication as “a big shock to the team” and says he will not spend time arguing whether the report was true or not.
He said: “I am not going to spend time arguing whether the reports are true or not because it will just be a waste of time and space but I want to make some points clear about Dolphins’ trip to Malabo for the CAF Champions League first round match against Sony Ela Nguema.
“First, I want to say that if the Dolphins team was so troubled before and during the trip yet they won 3-0 on the road, then most Nigerian clubs would want to have so much problems on their heads before they go on away games in Africa.
“People questioned the fact that the journey was delayed for an extra day despite the fact that it was a chartered flight.
“They also tried to suggest reasons why the flight was delayed, but the truth is that when an airline says a plane won’t take off for operational reasons, unless you own your own aircraft, runway or airport, you just have to listen to them and re-plan your schedule.”
He also added that the money issues in the team were blown out of proportion, saying that the players at no time returned money given to them as estacode.
He said: “The truth is that there was unfortunately no previous discussion with the players on how much they will get which was no one’s fault and the players only wanted more time to sit with the sports commissioner and hold those talks.
“But of course they didn’t want the discussion to affect their preparation for the match and that was why they decided to delay those talks until after the match with a promise that they were going to win convincingly, which they did.”
He stated that the other issue of the conduct of some members of the Dolphins travelling party lacks merit.
He added that the commissioner did not abandon the team as was insinuated.
He said: “We all got on the same plane to Malabo, which is not a very big place. So unless the commissioner, Fred Igwe, returned to Nigeria, I do not know what is meant by he abandoned the team.
“It would seem like a Catch 22 situation here where heads or tail you lose.
“If the man had spent so much time talking with the players on daily or hourly basis, it may be taken as a distraction.
“So he gave them some space and allowed the General Manager to be the link between the Sports Ministry and the team until that final pep talk he did himself, yet people still complained.”
Acheru added that the Dolphins team is focused on defending the League title they won last season and going all the way in the CAF Champions League and will not let negative publicity affect their focus.
He said: “We know what it is like to be a champion. People will talk about us and it could be good or bad.
“We bear no grudges against anyone but we urge that people focus more on the positive and there were lots of positives in that outing.
“We will remain focused on the prize while we welcome constructive criticism since no one can be perfect. There is no crisis at Dolphins and the trip to Malabo was very successful.”