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The Nigeria Rugby Football Federation will welcome conciliation efforts, which will help to develop the game in Nigeria.

Kayode, Oguntayo,
the Chief Executive of the federation, said this in reaction to
comments made by Taoheed Adedoja, the new minster of sports.

While inspecting
sports facilities in Lagos last Friday, Adedoja said he would like to
unite the warring parties in rugby – the federation and Friends of
Rugby – and thereby end the year-long crisis in the game.

Lingering problem

The crisis in
Nigerian Rugby began in 2009 when the National Sport Commission decided
to concession some sporting federations into private hands. The Rugby
Federation was among such federations whose bid was won by a club,
Racing RFC. This did not go down well with the Friends of Rugby, an
organisation committed to the growth of the game in Nigeria, who felt
they were cheated and reported the matter to the International Rugby
Board (IRB). The IRB decided that all warring factions come together
and settle their differences but until then, Nigeria is banned from
taking part in any IRB sponsored tournaments.

After many failed attempt to resolve the problem, the federation is open to intervention by Adedoja.

“The minister is
welcome. We are not against anybody who wants to make their grievances
known so that the game can be better. We are a government body and what
we want is for the game of rugby to be developed. If that would help,
why not?” Oguntayo said.

For his part, Ntiense Williams, spokesman for Friends of Rugby said only an election will satisfy for his group.

“A few weeks back
we called a stakeholders meeting and we have made our intentions clear.
Even the minister acknowledges that people are now getting wiser and
want to do things in accordance with international standards and that
is what we want,” said Williams, who said last year that the federation
has been trying to blackmail him to leave Friends of Rugby and join
them. The federation denied the allegation.

Effect on Nigeria’s ranking

The dispute in the
Nigerian rugby family is taking a toll on the country’s standing in the
sport. In the latest ranking released by International Rugby Board
(IRB), the sports governing body, Nigeria remains stuck in the 90th
position. Oguntayo said this development is the result of lack of
involvement by Nigeria in international competitions.

“This year, we are looking to correct that because our inability to
contest in tournament was what kept us on that low spot. We are going
to compete in a number of Confederation of Africa Rugby (CAR) approved
tournaments and hopefully things would look up from there”.