Nigeria: Football Stakeholders Move Against NFF – Ask Govt to Stop Appropriation of Funds to an Illegal Body

Daily Independent (Lagos)

By Tony Ezimakor

17 May 2011

Abuja — Turmoil may again erupt in the house of football following the resolve of some group to take over the running of football in the country. This action we gathered is coming as direct fall of the submission made by the Nigeria Football Federation in a Lagos court where the football body insisted that it will no longer honour any summons that came to it in the name of Nigeria Football Association (NFA).

Lawyer to the football body while reacting to a summon on the case filed by the president of the National Association of Nigerian Footballers, (NANF), Harrison Jala, asking for the relisting of his case against the football association told the court that it would refuse to answer summon made to it as Nigeria Football Association.

Since it changed its nomenclature to Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in 2007 at the orders of FIFA, federal government appropriations has continued to come in the name of the NFA, considered by many as an aberration if not an illegality.

Briefing newsmen in Abuja, front runner of the plot, Gara Ahmed Shuaibu, said the group would move to reclaim the ‘NFA’ as there is no legal body empowered currently to run the game in the country at the moment.

Gara noted that since the NFF has publicly denied the name of NFA for which it recognized by the nations laws and before a Nigeria law court, it follows that there was no authentic body, running football in the country.

The forum also warned government to stop further releases of funds to the present body since according to him it was an illegal body which is not recognized by any Nigerian act.

“The NFF has shot itself on the foot by the public rejection of the NFA, and it is obvious that the Nigerian law does not recognize any name like NFF. We may not rule out the possibility of going to the court to seek for interpretation of the status setting up the NFF and the Nigerian act that recognized the NFA “.

The former Gombe FA boss maintained that the decision to form appropriate the NFA was taken to uphold the integrity of the country, adding that it was criminal for the body to continue to collect federal government money with a name it rejected in the law court .

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