Nigeria Content Online

Nigerian football appears inured to crisis.

In this New Year
as nations prepare for a loaded football season, the spectre that
brought the game to its nadir last year, rears its head again.

As Nigerians will
remember, 2010 was a year wracked by conflict with members of Nigeria’s
football community going freely for one another’s jugular. In that
year, football administration reached its lowest with key federation
officials facing trial on charges of financial misappropriation while
others had their legitimacy challenged.

In the midst of
all of this, the game suffered with the highpoint of underperformance
being Nigeria’s uninspiring performance at the FIFA 2010 World Cup in
South Africa.

That disgraceful
outing, which underlined the ineptitude of the leadership of the
Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) then headed by Sani Lulu, was to have
consequences, not the least of which was the run in Nigeria had with
world football governing body, FIFA. On that occasion the ruling body
banned Nigeria from its association for what it said was government’s
meddling in the affairs of the NFF.

But more than
perceived government interference by FIFA, it was the rash of
litigations on the football landscape that more than anything else
stymied progress for the game last year.

The National
Association of Nigerian Footballers headed by Harrison Jalla, went to
court to prevent elections into the executive committee of the NFF from
holding without state football association chairmen who would vote at
the elections first subjecting themselves to election in their states.
While this was happening, Rumson Baribote, former chairman of Bayelsa
United FC, went to court to challenge the election of Davidson Owumi as
chairman of the Nigeria Premier League insisting that his nomination
was flawed.

The effect of
these cases was that while the football federation was left without
substantive leadership for months, the premier league began well behind
schedule. Nigerians were thus relieved when the combatants agreed to
sheath their swords in the interest of the game.

That relief
appears short-lived, as old wounds have been re-opened. Jalla, who in
October had withdrawn his case from court following a settlement
brokered by suspended FIFA executive Amos Adamu, has headed back to
court. Jalla claims that the NFF has breached the agreement it reached
last October.

He is thus praying
that the order of the Lagos High Court, given on September 6, 2010
annulling the NFF elections of August 26, 2010, be revisited and that
NFF president, Aminu Maigari and other members of the federation’s
executive committee be removed from the premises of the football
federation. Additionally Jalla is asking that contempt proceedings be
initiated against Maigari and his team.

Aside the Jalla
suit the ante of conflict has also been upped by the decision of the
NFF to sack Owumi as chairman of the NPL. Two weeks ago, the football
federation at the end of its Annual General Meeting in December decided
to uphold the decision of the Akin Ibidapo Obe-led arbitration panel
which, in June last year, ruled that Owumi was not qualified to contest
election as chairman of the NPL. Owumi has ignored the decision by the
NFF insisting that he remains head of the premier league board.

This development
is clearly disturbing. With so much on our football plate this year
(the Super Eagles continue their qualifying matches for the 2012
Nations Cup, our Flying Eagles, if they do well at the Africa youth
Championship to be held in March, will be at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in
Colombia while the Super Falcons will be at the FIFA Women’s World Cup
in Germany) we cannot afford the distraction that these conflicts
create.

Our football
administrators must find a way of rising above petty and narrow
self-interest and rally to pull the game from the morass their blind
ambition has cast it in. They must realise that as they bicker, the
lives and livelihoods of young Nigerians who play the game and the
millions of fans who have invested emotionally in it, are at stake.

At a time like this we call on the National Assembly, specifically
the Senate and House Committees on Sports and elder football statesmen
to intervene and persuade the combatants that their interests would be
best served if the game is allowed to flourish.