Former Super Eagles chief coach, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde, has hailed President Muhammadu Buhari’s timely intervention in the recent NFF leadership crisis and charged football administrators to put the interest of the country first before their selfish interest.
Speaking exclusively to The Point, the former FIFA and CAF instructor revealed that there is an urgent need for NFF boss, Amaju Pinnick and Chris Giwa, to embrace peace so that Nigerian football will develop.
“We have just had a stakeholder’s meeting called by the Sports Minister on behalf of the Federal Government and I made my opinion clear before them.
“There is an urgent need for both parties to embrace peace because any FIFA ban on Nigeria will spell doom for our country’s football.
“I see the whole scenario as a big distraction to our football development which is my major concern.
“I also discovered that both parties in the dispute are holding firm and not ready to shift position, but I advised that both parties must soften their stance and embrace peace.
“We could recall that this scenario played up during President Goodluck Jonathan’s era and some people accused me that I supported a two-year FIFA ban that was hanging on the country then. So, today we are back to the same situation!
“FIFA statutes are there and must be adhered to by countries who decide to join the organization, so Nigeria should not be an exception. In Nigeria today, I can count up to five FIFA statues that has been breached. For example, it is enshrined in FIFA statutes that the Boards of various football clubs (in any affiliated country) must be democratically elected. But how many clubs are obeying that in Nigeria?
“Must of the clubs are owned by state government and Board members are appointed by these owners which is undemocratic and against FIFA statutes. Even privately owned clubs are also doing the same,” Onigbinde said with a tinge of regret.
On the origin of the FIFA crises, the highly travelled soccer tactician said he was among the originators of the change of name from NFA to NFF but the legislators in the national assembly has failed to give the NFF the political support as needed by law. Onigbinde explained that it was this loophole that individuals are capitalizing on to create crisis in Nigerian football.
“In Nigeria we have State FAs and at the Federal level we run a federated system, thus there was need to rename NFA as NFF as done in other top football playing countries affiliated to FIFA. That was how the idea of Nigeria Football Federation came about following my experience at Trinidad and Tobago.
“But it is unfortunate that our legislators at the federal level have refused to do the needful by doing away with the Decree used in administrating sports in Nigeria, which also recognizes the existence of NFA instead of NFF.
“Also, there is need for government to support sport development because of the enormous gains ascribed to it. Personal interest is often put before national interest and that is why we will continue to have a circle of crisis in NFF as we are currently having now. I feel that there is a cabal that is benefiting from these crises because the legislators have failed to endorse the bill aimed at giving NFF the legislative power to stand,” he stated.
On the way forward, Onigbinde said technocrats must be given the opportunity to administer sports or football in the country and not
quacks.
“The problem of sport development in Nigeria is poor administration and our football league is poorly administered because of this same reason.
“Can you imagine, six years ago, I sent a request to NFF that 60 renkowned football coaches should be trained as league analysts. There duty is to anylses every league match, assess the standard of play, analyse match statistics, identify future good materials for all our national teams, but my request never saw the light of the day. Today, we see all manners of individuals masquerading as match assessors, all looking for what will line their pockets, which is sad.
“When I was made the Chairman of 3SC in 2003, I tried to make the club financially buoyant and free from government interference as is done in other football-playing nations, but I got a shocker of
my life!
“I requested then that every fan of the club should pay a token as membership fee at least to put the club on the way of financial autonomy since we had millions of followers, but many individuals later kicked against it.
“Can you imagine that 15 years after, the current management of the club wants to launch that same programme which I suggested
then?
“In a nutshell, I am happy that our President intervened this time to save our football in this recent crisis and I hope some people who are close to the seat of power will not scuttle it,” Onigbinde
concluded.
Meanwhile, Confederation of African Football (CAF) First President, Amaju Pinnick was on Monday, July 23, reinstated as the Nigeria Football Federation president after nearly three-week lacuna and he expressed gratitude to Nigeria’s President, Mohammadu Buhari for his timely intervention.