Saving Nigeria’s Football From Disaster

Just last week, a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos declared as illegal, both the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and Nigeria Premier League Board (NPL), the custodian of football and organiser of the premier league respectively in Nigeria.

The court, presided over by Justice Okorowo gave the ruling in a case brought before it by a former President of Nigeria Referees Association (NRA) seeking the determination of the legality or otherwise of the NFF and NPL.

The former NRA president was also challenging his disqualification by an electoral body  which conducted elections into the board of NPL, two years ago.

According to Justice Okorowo’s  ruling, both NFF and NPL were illegal bodies, “as the only body recognised by the National Assembly Act of 1999, remains the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) as the legal body that is saddled with the responsibility of handling football matters in the country with other affiliate bodies recognised by it”. NPL also has no statutory recognition. “Therefore, the names, NPL and NFF are illegal before the law”.

With this ruling, it calls to question the fate of football in Nigeria and all business done on behalf of the country in the names of NFF and NPL.

The Tide is worried that administration of football can still be at such crossroads after the calamity that befell the sport last year.

It is also worrisome that in spite of serious questions raised before now regarding the statutory position of NFF and NPL, no conscious effort was made, even by those who should know, to save the bodies from the eventual embarrassment.

Not only that the Super Eagles are not part of the ongoing 24th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea  and Gabon, the national teams crashed out of all major international competitions that were seen as the country’s birthright before now. The sorry story also includes the country’s abysmal performance towards qualifying for the 2012 Olympics and All Africa Games, among others.

We had hoped that the monumental failures would have galvanised the administrators and stakeholders into closing ranks and steering the game to the right direction of success.

Every country doing well  with their national teams across the world, like Brazil, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Ivory Coast and Ghana, boast of well organised domestic leagues and dependable federations manned by competent administrators, who are hardly distracted by destructive wranglings, clash of personal interests and legal battles that have been the lot of the game in Nigeria.

Undoubtedly, football remains one of the  very few strings that still binds Nigerians together. The game has in so many ways, at different times, provided the elixir needed to escape some of our most trying times as a nation.

This is why football should not suffer the manner of set backs due to avoidable pitfalls that will certainly spell doom for the sector and the nation’s potentials. The Tide calls for immediate action from the authorities to ensure that the football governing body and its affiliates operate within the legal identities available to them.

We note that football issues, according to FIFA practice, are not to be taken to the regular courts. However, it is time for members of the national football governing body, stakeholders and aggrieved individuals sat at a roundtable to reach a compromise on how to salvage the present and remote predicaments of poor football administration.

All affected stakeholders must ensure that they avoid wranglings that will  endanger the game through any act of omission or commission.

It is time concerned authorities healed the  wounds, forged ahead and found ways to lift Nigeria football to its deserved  exalted position, and the pride of place  it used to enjoy at home, in Africa and the world.