THE RIDDLE CALLED NFF!!!!!

Several months ago when it was first reported that the Super Eagles of Nigeria will be a part of an invitational tournament to mark the president's holiday in Dallas, some of us in the media world gladly embraced this reports and started digging around for information about this football tourney that has been called several names since the first announcement was made. The tournament was to going serve as an opportunity for The Nigeria Senior  team to have some needed practice against decent opponents as the teams undergoes some needed rebuilding.

The excitement soon started to fade as people started discovering some irregularities attached to this tournament. I remember when i first checked the internet to find if there is a website dedicated to the tournament, what I saw was very appalling as only pictures as only pictures of participating countries were there. Information provided on the site were so inadequate and the over-all quality of the site raised many suspicion.

Background check on the organisers themselves revealed they had never organised anything of this magnitude. They've only organised a notable grass root competition before. So I thought to myself, did the NFF do a background check on Pius Oleh (the agent) and his company before accepting to be part of the tournament? If they did, who accepted to do this deal and why did the NFF agree to be part of a competition organised by an in-experienced agency.

Another issue I had with the whole "Obama Cup" was the fact that Nigeria was expected to come with her senior squad while 2 of the other participating teams were going to send their age-group teams for the tournament. SO why did the NFF agree to this arrangement when we could have sent the Flying Eagles team who are preparing for the African Youth Championship instead of sending our senior team to face some school boys? 

When Mexico and Panama withdrew (this was clearly posted on the Mexican FA's website) because the organisers couldn't meet their terms and conditions, why didn't anybody in the NFF start asking questions, especially the Technical Department?

Internationally, when a team is invited to a tournament or competition, a financial commitment is always made by the organisers. Travel tickets and accommodation are arranged by the organisers. In Nigeria's case, we used taxed payers money to travel abroad and to book for Hotel accommodation only to get there and found out that we were the only country around for the Obama Cup. 

It is amazing how the NFF in their greed or lust after money fail to follow simple business principles thereby bringing shame on the country as a whole. The NFF chairman claimed they were` deceived and I ask by who? Is it by Pius Oleh or someone in the NFF isn't saying the truth. Could it be that  some people in the NFF`already know this tourney was a sham but still went ahead with it just to make money for themselves?

Less than a month ago Nigeria was also involved in a similar case when we were made to believe there was going to be a friendly match between Nigeria and Guatemela only to realise later that they were just factions of some people's imaginations in the NFF.

The NFF should be made to answer questions about this embarrassment. Tax payers' money was spent and tax payers deserve an explanation. Head of NFF Technical committee, Barr Chris Green said in an interview on Brila FM early this morning that they have nothing to answer to and I think that is a very careless statement coming from a man who is supposed to be one of the shining lights on the board of the NFF and a man who understands the law.

Nigeria Football deserves better leadership than what we have right now. We can't have puppets running our football, it will only lead us back to where we thought we are moving away from. With some of the decisions taken in recent times by these NFF Executive, I am convinced most of them don't have an idea what it means to run football and don't have a plan to move our football forward. 

I have on good authority that some people who head some committees in the NFF are not even aware of the decisions taken by the committees they head. One example of such is the Globacom banner that flooded the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Suru-lere during the friendly match between Nigeria and Sierra Leone which the Head of the Marketing committee knew nothing about. 

Nigeria football need a Saviour and we need him or her fast.