Tag: nff

The report submitted to the NFF Secretariat by members of the NFF 2014 Electoral Committee, upholding the NFF 2014 Elective Congress held in Warri on Tuesday, 30th September has been endorsed by prominent and relevant authorities and bodies across the globe, including the sports committees of the National Assembly.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports, Senator Adamu Gumba said his committee will stick by the report of the majority of the members of the NFF 2014 Electoral Appeals Committee.

All four members of the NFF 2014 Electoral Appeals Committee on Wednesday conveyed to the NFF Secretariat their decision throwing out the appeals and upholding in its entirety, the NFF 2014 Elective Congress of Tuesday, 30th September, 2014.

In any judicial body, the opinion of every member counts. The chairman merely reads the decision, which may be against his own considered view and position. A ruling is either unanimous or split, and even when the chairman’s position is in the minority, he has no choice but to read the majority decision.

Chairman of the House of Reps’ Committee on Sports, Hon. Godfrey Gaiya added his voice on Thursday, saying that he has never seen anywhere in the world where one prevails over four.

“It is a moot point. The decision of the majority is what the House Committee on Sports will stand by. Any other claim is minority opinion that does not have any leg to stand on,” he said.

“Personally, I was at the election in Warri, and it was to me one of the fairest and freest you can see anywhere. It was appropriately conducted, in line with the Statutes and regulations governing the elections, and we should simply forget dissenting voices and move on with our football administration.”

President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick can heave a sigh of relief after his election which brought him into office on September 30 was upheld by the electoral appeals committee yesterday in Abuja.

Furthermore, no board member’s seat was declared vacant by the Okey Ajunwa led-committee.

Several petitions challenging the legality of the election were dealt with extensively by the committee before reaching its decisions.

The  six-man committee agreed they lacked merit and consequently communicated its findings to the NFF secretariat.

But despite its position, only five out of the six man-committee signed the communique.

Ajunwa’s signature was missing which suggested that all may not be well within the committee.

A pointer to this was the way the members openly criticised Ajunwa for taking unilateral decisions as the meeting progressed. It was, however, resolved.

“This statement is having in mind that the chairman may have a dissenting minority opinion,” a potion of the communique read.

Football governing body, FIFA will be duly notified of the committee’s position by the NFF secretariat.

Former Nigeria international and renowned lawyer Adokiye Amiesimaka has said that the recent happenings in the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) could force more football matters to be taken to civil courts, after the NFF appeals committee ruled against the jurisdiction of the Electoral Appeals Committee to hear petitions filed against the conduct of the September 30 elections that brought about the present board of the NFF.

The NFF appeals committee led by Eddy Mark had ruled in November that ‘Article 12 (3) (of the NFF Electoral code) gives 14 days time to dispose of any appeal against the election’, and that ‘the election appeal committee has invited complainant to appear on  November 12 and 13, 2014 well outside the 14 days in the electoral code for the election appeal hearing’, hence their reason to rule that ‘the invitation and proposed sitting by the election appeal committee is caught by the provisions of Article 12 (3), hence null and void. The election appeal committee has no jurisdiction to sit outside the time provided by Article 12 (3) of the electoral guidelines’.

The findings of the NFF appeals committee was reported by NFF spokesperson, Ademola Olajire, to have been ‘adopted’ by the 70th NFF General Assembly held in Lagos on November 23. Part of the statement issued by Olajire read in part that ‘the General Assembly adopted wholesale the reports of all NFF standing committees and judicial bodies since the inauguration of the Amaju Pinnick-led executive committee’.

However, Amiesimaka believes that the appeals committee’s findings and its reported adoption by the General Assembly could cause more commotion and force people to return to civil courts.

“I have not read about this elsewhere but if that information is correct, you too can see the lack of sincerity of purpose. After going through the process and making all your submissions to the (electoral) appeals committee and I even heard one of the submissions was on jurisdiction and all that. Why don’t you allow the (electoral) appeals committee to come out with its findings?

“You now go through the back door because you know the general assembly has such authority on football matters, and you go through the back door and assemble them to make them pass such resolutions. Of course you know what you’re looking for, you are only saying that people should go back to court,” Amiesimaka told SL10.ng.

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) have decided to start building a new senior national team, with the focus now to be on younger players.

A senior official of the NFF hinted that the federation is looking at getting younger players to replace the squad, which failed to qualify for the 2015 African Nations Cup(AFCON).

The official insists that restructuring the team and selecting what would become of the technical crew would form part of the agenda of the board when they meet after Sunday’s Federation Cup final in Lagos.

NFF officials believe that part of the problems in the 2015 AFCON qualifiers is due to the attitude of the players. They are also of the opinion that most of them are no longer fit to be in the national team.

The NFF, who were in a running battle with Stephen Keshi, prompting the intervention of the President, are of the opinion that Nigeria could have presented better players than some of those that played at the World Cup and featured in the Nations Cup qualifiers.

The younger South African players ran rings around the visibly slower and ponderous Nigerian team in Uyo during the 2-2 draw.

Baring any last minute changes,  the Super Eagles will confront one of the teams in Nigeria’s 2014 World Cup group, Bosnia in an international friendly game to be played in the country at an unnamed stadium.

Besides, countries such as Serbia, France and England are on the wishlist for friendly games with the Eagles with the President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Amaju Pinnick insisting that most of the international friendly matches will be played in Nigeria, in a bid to showcase the country’s rich tourism opportunities,  culture and open a new vista for the country in the eyes of our visitors.

Disclosing this to Sportinglife in Lagos on Saturday, Amaju stated that: ” Our board has decided that 60% of the proposed international matches would be played in Nigeria. I will also tell you that most of the games will be against grade A footballing nations since that is the only way others will accept our requests, especially if we win most of the games.

“I can confirm to you that the March 25, 2015 international friendly against Brazil will hold inside the Akwa Ibom Internation Stadium, a.k.a the Nest of Champions. The Brazil game is part of our short-term programmes to get the Eagles and the coaches busy as we prepare for the 2018 World Cup qualifiers and the corresponding Africa Cup of Nations(AFCON) qualifiers.

“In this short-term package is the desire to send some of our ex-internationals to England for refresher courses in match reading, crisis managment and other related courses that would help us imporve on the quality of information to be given the coaches before, during and after matches.

“There are two other stages (middle term and long term) but we must make sure that the short term programmes effectively correct some of the noticeably flaws in our football. We will ensure that the local league clubs are rejuvenated and I intend meeting with the real owners of the clubs, the state governors to tell them what we want to do and to urge them to invite their freinds to buy into their clubs or just take them over.

SOME ex-internationals urged  Nigeria Football Federation and policy makers in sports to go back to the drawing board and develop a new structure that would train young football players at the grassroots.

The ex-international were reacting to the Super Eagles inability to qualify for 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea.

While decrying the poor performance of the team, the ex-internationals said that the Eagles played below the expectation of Nigerians.

The Eagles, who needed a victory to scale through to the continental showpiece, played a 2-2 draw with the Bafana Bafana of South Africa.

Eagles ended their group A matches with eight points from six games, and placed third behind the qualifying teams— South Africa with 12 points, and Congo with 10 points.

Adokie Amesimaka said that the team did not exhibit sufficient skills in the match and that the defence played as if they were playing with so much pressure hanging on their necks.

‘’They did not approach the game with flair, confidence and good football skills that had been the hallmark of a Super Eagles team.

‘’We need to learn from this and resurrect our football through the youth ranks— where young players can be well managed and groomed to quality players,’’ Amesika said.

Former captain of the Green Eagles, Henry Nwosu, said that the team had not played well enough to qualify.

‘’It is sad the way we ended the qualifying series after doing so well on Nov. 15 against Congo in their country.

‘’The team should be disappointed in themselves for not getting the necessary result at home soil when it mattered most,’’ Nwosu said.

Another ex-international, Edema Fuludu, said that the team had no business playing a draw and failing the nation.

‘’Eagles could not rise to the occasion; they played as if they could get an easy result, hence, they were shocked by a more determined South Africa team.

‘’The team lacked team work, they were not professional about their approach,’’ Fuludu said.