Godfrey Ali Gaiya who served as Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Sports while in the lower chambers between 2007 and 2015 has charged the new board of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) presided over by Ibrahim Gusau to give priorities to growing the local league as well as the domestication of the NFF statutes among other issues. TUNDE LIADI writes.
Former Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Sports, Godfrey Ali Gaiya has charged the newly elected Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Ibrahim Gusau to run an open-door policy by welcoming genuine ideas from stakeholders.
“The election has come and gone and I will like to advise President Ibrahim Gusau to open his door to all the schools of football administration,” Gaiya began in an interview with NationSport.“He should ensure that all the interests are taken care of.
“Football is about passion and interest, those with passion and interest in the game should be listened to, and he should not run a one-man show.
“If there are those with better roadmaps or blueprints among those that contested against him he could harmonize it so that at the end of the day, it will be seen as a collective way to run the football.”
He stressed that it is pertinent to have the NFF cum FIFA statutes domiciled in Nigeria’s law to guide against problems that have always bedevilled the sport at every election year, adding having the NFF statutes recognized by Nigerian law would end the penchant of football stakeholders taking football issues to civil court.
“We don’t have to labour the issue of legislation to guide sports. Every sporting federation is an affiliate of the world body and the world bodies have their statutes. They have their laid down rules on how sporting federations are to be managed,” he added. “The issue of dilly-dallying on whether Decree 101 is in subsisting or abolished is unnecessary.
“We are just making it a big issue. My take is that we can make a law for any sport with just a sentence. That the NFF should be administered in accordance with FIFA rules and regulations, constitution and guidelines, and that Nigeria and the government have domiciled the FIFA statutes to govern our football.
“It means then that the federal government has recognized FIFA and governing body of Nigerian football and the issue of autonomy of the NFF or not won’t arise. By that time the government would have handed off football and ensured it is in tandem with other football nations.
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“But here, we want to eat our cake and have it. When it is comfortable to turn attention to FIFA they turn to do and when it is comfortable to ask the government for money they turned it to the NFA. At the end of the day, they are eating from two sides and when you ask them to account for what they have collected from both sides, nobody wants to come forth.
“For me, it is beyond just making law and it is not with the name as well whether it is NFA or NFF but what is the most important is that it is in line with the dictates of the business of football. The name doesn’t matter, after all, we still have English FA and not English FF. What is the difference between Association and a Federation? Football is association football. But if they feel the name alone is sufficient to give our present NFF a new lease of life or a new way of thinking, I totally disagree.”
He, however, threw his weight behind those clamouring for the enlargement of the NFF delegates with voting powers to halt the leadership of the football house from being determined by some sets of stakeholders.
“Before the election, there were issues that were on the front burner and most of those issues should have been thrashed before going to the main election.
“The main issue is whether it is good enough for the NFF President to emerge from the votes of only 44 delegates or whether it will be more democratic to have more hands involved before it is done. If the delegates are enlarged, to accommodate all shades of interests, whoever emerges would have been more acceptable and more followed from a democratic process.
“The delegates should be enlarged. Nigeria has a lot of football followers and limiting the entire process to the 37 States including Abuja and some other seven does not reflect the nature and the support base of Nigerian football. If countries like Ghana can have more than 100 delegates, I feel Nigeria too should look inward and thoroughly at the report submitted by the committee to plan a 10-year programme for Nigeria. Part of their recommendations was to enlarge the number of delegates for future NFF Elections.
“Nigerian football should be an open door for all and sundry that has what it takes to add value to the game and given an enabling field to participate.”