Dear FIFA President: I am constrained to write you once again because it seems FIFA has been fed with lies about football in Nigeria. Let me start by telling you that unlike in Europe, football is not yet seen as a big business in Nigeria. Your member, Amos Adamu knows this and I am surprised he did not tell you about it.
Dear FIFA President: I am constrained to write you once again because it seems FIFA has been fed with lies about football in Nigeria. Let me start by telling you that unlike in Europe, football is not yet seen as a big business in Nigeria. Your member, Amos Adamu knows this and I am surprised he did not tell you about it.
In Nigeria, government has been responsible for running all sports, football inclusive, that was how Adamu got close to football. He once benefited from the so-called government interference, when he was appointed sole administrator of the NFA in 1992 after the NFA board was dissolved.
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As the government man running sports in Nigeria, Adamu planted his men everywhere and frustrated all football people, ostensibly to make way for himself later. Was that not how through the so-called government interference Nigeria pulled out of the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa? Even former NFA secretary general, Patrick Okpomo who was going there for official function for CAF was ordered back home forcefully.
All this time, FIFA was deceived that football was properly run. All the past NFA elections have been nothing but a selection, carefully arranged by Adamu and covered from the glare of the rest of the world.
After Adamu lost out as a top official of the Sports ministry, he began moves to make Nigeria a laughing stock before the world, threatening the country with phantom FIFA bans. He did not tell FIFA that all football clubs in the Nigerian Premier League are government owned and sponsored, that all the FA chairmen and secretaries are either civil servants or political loyalists of the ruling parties in each of the states, that even club chairmen are either civil servants on the payroll of government or government contractors.
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Even the NFA Board are filled with civil servants and government contractors, yet Adamu didn't tell FIFA so, again because he benefited from it.
The crisis in our football now is instigated by him because he fears he might lose grip of the NFA if the reforms are implemented and free minded people come on board. That may be the reason he deceived FIFA from knowing that the state elections have not been done, that the same delegates who voted Sani Lulu into power in 2006 were to vote again in 2010.
If you and your executive committee members were not up to something sinister, wouldn't you have looked into the complaints of Segun Odegbami on the illegality of the electoral process being put in place by Sani Lulu? If not that Nigerians were not happy with the Lulu Board who mismanaged government funds for the 2010 World Cup and were impeached by the NFA Board, Lulu, an Adamu stooge would have returned.
The Maigari leadership which impeached Lulu and co, turned around to use the same delegates already compromised by the Lulu group, after illegally pruning the voters from 105 to 47 to return to power even after a court told them to hold on and yet you didn't see anything wrong in that.
What actually about football can't be taken to a regular court? Is it not technical matters concerning the game? So when someone's right is being infringed upon, he can't seek redress in a regular court because he's a member of the football family? Is that how it is practised in Switzerland and other European countries? Why the double standards Mr Blatter?
All the fraudulent activities of football officials in Nigeria have escaped your attention, why? You preach fair play in FIFA and yet a stakeholder complained to you about illegalities in Nigeria football system yet you overlooked it and you don't want the world to believe FIFA is run by a cabal like a cult. Ponder over the suspension you handed Nigeria and judge whether the interest of one Executive Committee member is greater than that of the entire sovereign country like Nigeria. Posterity will judge you on this matter if you don't do the right and fair thing like you always preach.
Thank you
Patrick Omorodion
A concerned journalist from Nigeria
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