The Minister of Sports in Nigeria, Tammy Danagogo, has been asked to intervene in the Nigeria Football Federation’s crisis and avert possible sanction by the world football governing body, FIFA.
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has seen series of leadership tussles, in the last few months.
Emphasising the need for the Minister to wade into the crisis, a sports editor with the Sun Newspaper, George Aluo, on Tuesday, said that a timely intervention would save Nigeria’s football and give needed morale to the Super Eagles in their remaining 2015 African Nations Cup qualifier matches.
He attributed Nigeria’s present struggle to qualify to the crisis and further urged those involved to seek nation’s interest rather than their selfish interest.
Many thought the crisis had ended when the Amaju Pinnick led board was put in place, but the Chris Giwa faction of the NFF went to court and secured an order removing Pinnick from office.
The world football governing body sees the issue as an interference in the administration of football in Nigeria and had warned that it would ban Nigeria from international games if the issue was not resolved.
A Family Case
In a telephone conversation with Channels Television, Giwa said that the case in the Plateau State High Court, which ordered the Mr Pinnick to vacate office, had nothing to do with FIFA.
“There are issues on ground and I don’t want us to cover it up. The case we have in Nigerian court has nothing to do with FIFA. It is a family case. We have an issue and we decided to go to a court in Nigeria. We have two cases. The one that involves FIFA is the one in Switzerland and the case that involves we Nigeria is the one in court in Jos. It has nothing to do with the rules of the game,” he claimed.
But Aluo insisted that any issue that involves football administration is not supposed to be taken to a conventional court and urged Giwa to withdraw the case.
“It is against FIFA rules to take cases that are supposed to be treated in a court set up by the governing body for such issues.
“Thank God the harmer from FIFA has not come.
“FIFA is not happy in banning anybody. Because it will not derive any joy in seeing Nigeria not being part of its family. What FIFA is saying is that we should do the needful and respect the statutes of football.
“We are not doing that at the moment. I don’t think that we are doing the right thing.
“The way the stakeholders are going about it in this country, they are not telling themselves the truth. They are deceiving themselves and at the end of the day, it is the country that will suffer if we are banned. The earlier we do the needful the better for us.
“The Sports Minister should know a few things. Whether he is in or out of sports. You don’t need to be involved in football to know that football matter is not taken to the conventional court.
“If it is taken to the conventional court, it affects the administration,” he said.
To resolve the issue, the Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, had scheduled a meeting with the NFF President and Mr Aluo believes President Jonathan’s intervention would lay the crisis to rest once and for all.