Fresh trouble for NFF, Pinnick

According to sunnews,

THE President Muhamma­du Buhari administration’s anti-corruption war may have shifted to the sports sector with the searchlight now beamed on the Glass House of the nation’s soccer governing body, NFF.

Daily Sunsports scooped that the security agents had started investigating how the current board of the soc­cer federation led by former Delta State FA chairman, Amaju Pinnick won the September 30, 2014 elec­tion in Warri.

It would be recalled that the Warri election, apart from raising a lot of dust that are yet to settle, was one in which monies run­ning into millions of naira were alleged to have ex­changed hands, with del­egates said to have smiled to the banks.

A competent source dis­closed to Daily Sunsports last night that the Federal Government was not un­aware of happenings in the soccer federation and the manner Amaju came in last year.

According to our source, the anti corruption war of the Buhari administration will soon be taken to sports with the NFF being the first to be thoroughly investi­gated.

“As we speak, security agents have started inves­tigating the NFF, especial­ly how the Amaju board emerged at the Warri elec­tion. They are aware a lot of money went into that elec­tion and are investigating how the election was fund­ed, how much went into it and all that. Recall that the election was simply a cash and carry affair where mon­ey exchanged hands in Gha­na-must-go bags. Beyond the Warri election, since coming into office, the NFF leadership had engaged in a lot of financial dealings that were not too tidy and the security operatives are dig­ging into all that. The feder­al Government is interested in sanitizing all sectors, in­cluding sports,” our source said.

It was recalled that the NFF recently signed a new sponsorship deal with American sportswear manu­facturing outfit, NIKE, with details of the deal shrouded in secrecy. The soccer fed­eration had also come un­der fire over the contract it awarded for the furnish­ing of the Sunday Dankaro House built for the federa­tion by the now dissolved Presidential Task Force on football. In an apparent face saving move, the NFF board last week revoked the furnishing contract put at over N178m. The soc­cer federation has also not accounted for the finan­cial largesse that came the country’s way after the Brazil 2014 World Cup. It would be noted that all the countries that qualified for the 2014 mundial pocketed eight million dollars from FIFA . Nigeria got addition­al one million dollars for reaching the second round.

While the soccer fed­eration of Nigeria’s West African neighbor, Ghana, promptly confirmed getting her FIFA largesse and pay­ing same into the coffers of Ghanaian Government, the Federal government got nothing from the NFF.

“The security agents are probing all these, I can con­firm to you,” our source said.

Share this

Unknown