Nigeria Content Online

The
Year 2010 was a year of intense activity for Nigerian football. Compared
to the years preceding it, 2010 proved to be the most dramatic and
conflict ridden.

The seeds of
conflicts were sown early. In January at the Africa Cup of Nations in
Angola, the Super Eagles, which in 2009 had kept Nigerians on
tenterhooks during the qualifiers for this year’s World Cup, were
expected to redeem themselves.

The team, which had
in the last three editions before 2008 finished in third place before
its quarter final ouster at the Ghana edition, was expected to win the
tournament a third time in Angola.

That expectation
proved too great as the Eagles exited the tournament in the semi-final
losing to a young Ghanaian side comprising players drawn largely from
its U-20 team, which won the FIFA World Youth Championship in Egypt in
September 2009.

Chain reaction

The Eagles’ failure
to win the Nations Cup set in motion a series of events which were to
reverberate throughout the year. The immediate outcome was the firing of
head coach, Shuaibu Amodu on February 5.

Amodu’s sack did not
come as surprise to many. Even though he had led the Eagles to qualify
for the World Cup and had met the Nations Cup semi-final target set for
him by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), a lot of Nigerians were
not altogether satisfied with the way the Eagles played under him. For
most of them, the players appeared carefree and listless with the
traditional spark and verve associated with the squad gone.

With Amodu out of
the way, it was expected that the football federation would move swiftly
to get a replacement but it frittered away valuable time only
appointing former Sweden national team manager, Lars Lagerback at the
end of that month. The Swede however did not get to try out his players
until May 25 about three weeks to the World Cup when the Eagles faced
Saudi Arabia in an international friendly match.

Lagerback’s late
meeting with his players was to have dire consequences for the squad as
it failed to make it beyond the first round of the World Cup despite
being presented with a last opportunity to do so.

Lulu axed

Nigeria’s poor
showing at the World Cup had consequences. President Goodluck Jonathan
taking cue from angry and disappointed Nigerians order a two-year ban on
Nigeria’s participation in international football competitions. He was
to rescind his decision a few days later after warnings from FIFA and
pressure from Nigerians who felt that the careers of players of other
national football teams affected by the ban would be truncated.

Beleaguered
officials of the NFF eager to stave off further verbal attacks from
Nigerians moved to appease then by impeaching Sani Lulu, President of
the federation and two other officials – Amanze Uchegbulam, 1st Vice
President and Taiwo Ogunjobi, head of technical committee. The officials
were among other things accused of running the federation without
reference to other members of the board. In place of Lulu, Aminu Maigari
mounted the saddle.

Election debacle

Before Lulu fell
from power, he had carefully crafted his strategy to remain in office.
Indeed, it was said that it was his preoccupation with getting
re-elected president of the NFF that blinded him to the necessity of
arranging friendly matches on time for the Eagles to enable Lagerback
get a feel of his players well before the World Cup commenced.

As a way of
retaining power, Lulu had tinkered with the statutes of the federation,
pruning the number of delegates eligible to vote during national
elections from 101 to 44 with 37 of those members being chairmen of the
36 state football associations and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT),
Abuja. In addition to this, Lulu had in 2009 extended the tenure of the
state FA chairmen to November this year meaning that the individuals
whose tenure should have expire around the middle of 2010 would stay on
to vote in the national elections fixed for August this year without
first going to renew their own mandate.

This move was
opposed by those who felt Lulu had designed the process to facilitate
his return to power. His case was not helped by allegations that he
bribed each FA chairmen with N5million and sponsored them to the World
Cup in South Africa.

From Odegbami to Jalla

Segun Odegbami,
former captain of the Green Eagles (now Super Eagles) challenged Lulu,
sending two letters, the first in June and the second in July, to FIFA
describing Lulu’s tinkering with the statues as illegal. Beyond
acknowledgement of his first letter, FIFA practically ignored Odegbami.
But they could not ignore Harrison Jalla.

Jalla, a former
footballer who played for among other clubs, Flash Flamingoes of Benin
City in the 1980s, headed to court to compel the NFF to allow elections
hold first into the state FAs. The court, a high Court sitting in Lagos,
had ordered that the elections originally fixed for August 21, 2010 be
put on hold until issues pertaining to the Jalla suit had been
determined.

The NFF now headed
by Maigari, the Director of Finance during Lulu’s tenure, disobeyed the
order and held the elections on August 26 after Isa Bio, minister of
sports had asked them to give him a few days to brief President Jonathan
on the matter.

The disobedience of
the court order infuriated Justice Okon Abang of the Lagos High Court
who nullified the election stating that Maigari and 28 other individuals
including Musa Ahmadu, current acting secretary general of the NFF who
replaced Nolaji Ojo-Oba, the federation’s secretary general who were in
contempt for holding the elections. Maigari appealed the decision.

The case in court
created problems for Maigari preventing him from acting as NFF boss. It
also held up the commencement of the 2010/2011 season of the Nigeria
Premier League, which could not get under way without some committees in
the NFF being constituted.

Trouble in the NPL

There was also the
matter of leadership tussle within the board of the Nigeria Premier
League, which had not abated since former Enugu Rangers striker,
Davidson Owumi emerged chairman of the body this year.

With former Bayelsa
United chairman Victor Baribote insisting he was the right person to
head the NPL and claiming that the relegation of Bayelsa United, the
sports ministry waded in with Bio summoning premier league club owners
to find a way out. It was agreed at the meeting to overturn the
relegation of the Yenagoa-based club side alongside Wikki tourists,
Gateway FC and Ranchers Bees, which had been approved by the congress of
the NPL during the Super Four tournament in Ijebu-Ode in August.

This decision
coupled with the advice given to Ahmadu by the sports ministry to step
down as acting secretary following his being named as a contemnor by the
Lagos High Court, drew the ire of FIFA, which held that government was
interfering with the running of football in the country.

FIFA bans Nigeria

The world football
body on October 4 slammed a ban on Nigeria “until the court actions have
ceased and the duly elected NFF executive committee is able to work
without any interference.”

Moves were quickly
made to get the ban lifted with Amos Adamu, FIFA’s executive committee
member reaching agreement with Jalla who agreed to withdraw the case in
court in return for all the issues contained in the suit filed by the
association being resolved amicably between all the parties concerned
before the next hearing of the court.

This agreement
prompted FIFA to lift the ban on the understanding that final settlement
should be reached. The case was finally withdrawn on October 25 thus
paving way for Maigari to fully take charge at the NFF.

Cash-for-vote scandal

The lifting of the
ban had come as a relief for Adamu who had come under serious fire for
allegedly instigating FIFA to come down hard on Nigeria. His relief was
to be short-lived as trouble lurked around the corner.

On October 16 news
broke that the former Director General of the National Sports Commission
had been involved in cash for vote scandal.

English newspaper,
Sunday Times of London had broken the story of how Adamu and Reynard
Tenarii, another member of FIFA’s executive committee had asked for
money from their reporters carrying out a sting operation in which they
posed as lobbyists for the American bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
Adamu was alleged to has asked for £500,000 from the reporters to secure
his vote for the Americans who eventually pulled out of the bid. Video
footage was released showing Adamu in negotiation with the reporters.

Adamu said he was
innocent but was eventually suspend from all football activities for
three years by FIFA after the body’s ethics committee headed by Claudio
Sulser, a former Switzerland international concluded investigations into
the matter. He has repeatedly said he will appeal the decision.

The suspended FIFA
executive committee member returned to Nigeria on December 17 from
Europe where he had been holed up since the scandal broke. Last
Wednesday he was arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC), which interrogated him for asking him among
other things, to explain how the N24 billion budgeted for the 2003 All
Africa Games was spent. He was released the same day but had his travel
passport seized.

Glo, NFF Sponsorship face-off

The crisis-ridden
football landscape also witnessed the face-off between NPL and former
league sponsors over the decision of the league organising body to award
sponsorship rights to rival telecommunications company, MTN.

After two days of
bidding, the NPL bid committee announced MTN represented at the exercise
by Total Promotions Limited as new sponsors of the league after it
presented a bid of N2.6 billion to sponsor the league for a four-year
period. Globacom had protested that decision claiming that it had put in
a superior bid of N3billion naira but on December 22, an adjudication
committee of lawyers set up by the NSC stated that the bid process was
transparent and that the NPL was right to have award the rights to MTN.

Women’s game offers hope

It was not all gloom
for Nigeria football as the women’s game proved to be an oasis in the
desert. As the men both in the administrative offices and the pitch
disappointed, the women chalked up laurels. At the U-20 Women’s World
cup, which took place in Germany between July and August, our Falconets
finished in second place behind hosts, Germany.

A month later in
Trinidad and Tobago Nigeria’s U-17, Nigeria’s U-17 women’s team, the
Flamingoes narrowly lost out in the quarter-final of the U-17 World Cup
to South Korea after leading on three occasions in the encounter.

Nigeria’s senior
women’s team, the Super Falcons were to capped a good outing by our
women by winning the African Women’s Championship, which held in South
Africa in November. It was their sixth title overall.

They were to shine again last week at the Glo Africa footballer of
the Year Awards in Cairo winning the Women’s Team of the Year with
striker Perpetua Nkwocha emerging best female footballer for the fourth
time.