When a haughty man falls from the Olympian heights of the FIFA and CAF executive committees to
the depths of global odium, courtesy of a brazen act of hubris
televised on news bulletins around the world, it does irreparable
damage to his aura of invincibility.
Nicknamed “Mr Fix-It”, for his ability
to traverse, by any means necessary, the filthy, corrupt waters of
Nigerian sport, finally coming unstuck in the international arena –
after the London Sunday Times undercover crew filmed him demanding an
$800,000 bribe for his 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup vote – has undoubtedly
left Amos Adamu with a sense of bewilderment.
Forgetting the proverbial cat has only
nine lives, the former director of sports development rode out his luck
on the 10th; arrogantly forgetting that the swinging pendulum of
fortune has a brutal way of leaving buccaneers twisting in the wind at
inopportune, vulnerable moments.
Perhaps this swift and sudden fall from
grace has altered the senses of Adamu, as the 58-year-old desperately
finds a way to remain relevant, despite FIFA’s three-year ban from all
football activities, which will run out on November 18, 2013.
Anyone with an ethical strain in their
DNA would spend ample time privately reflecting on their public fall
from grace, even if they are reluctant to do a public pilgrimage of
penitence.
But that is a step too far for Adamu,
who still insists, after two convictions by the FIFA Ethics Committee
and the FIFA Appeals Committee, that he is clean.
“I’m certainly not a corrupt
administrator…They [the Sunday Times] edited it to make it look as
though I said send money to me directly,” he told the BBC’s Farayi
Mungazi on February 7.
“What was pushed out to the public was
heavily edited…Of course they wanted to give me money. I said ‘no, if
you want to invest in pitches in Nigeria, you buy them and send them to
Nigeria yourself…” Oh, really Mr. Adamu? Are you kidding me?
In the very same conversation with my
former office colleague, Adamu had the temerity to tell another
bare-faced lie, as he denied being under investigation by the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), for alleged crimes committed
whilst in the employ of the Nigerian government.
“I am not under investigation… I have
worked for the Nigerian government for 35 years and I have never been
accused of anything… I can hold my head high and face anybody.”
Can you really, Mr Adamu? Then why
didn’t you put your money where your mouth is and make good your
promise of February 7, in that very same BBC interview, to appeal to
the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne?
FIFA told me, on Tuesday April 5, that
“the findings of the decision of the FIFA Appeal Committee in the
aforementioned matter (of ethical misconduct) were notified to Dr Adamu
on 4 February 2011.”
And as “Mr Fix-it”
acutely knows, Section 63 of the FIFA statutes states that, “Appeals
against final decisions passed by FIFA’s legal bodies and against
decisions passed by Confederations, Members or Leagues shall be lodged
with CAS within 21 days of notification of the decision in question.”
That clearly means February 25 was the deadline by which Adamu had to
file his appeal.
But in an email I received from the
Court of Arbitration for Sport, following my inquiry on the progress of
Adamu’s “appeal”, this is what I found out: “At the time of writing,
(April 5, 2011) the CAS has not received an appeal from Dr Adamu,” they
said.
Game over, Mr Adamu! There are no more
rabbits to pull out of your bag of tricks. The Confederation of African
Football, which has been reluctant to expel him from the executive
committee, must swing the axe and select his replacement.
And the same applies to the West
African Football Union, of which he still remains the president. Truth,
as they say, is often stranger than fiction.
Issa Hayatou, une question pour vous
… vous laissez faire les choses CAF éthiques, s’il vous plaît? (Issa
Hayatou, a question for you… will you let CAF do the ethical thing,
please?).
We’re all waiting…
