Bar. Solomon Dalung, the Minister of Youth and Sports in Nigeria has identified three key problems of Nigeria Football Federation that are militating against the development of the game in the country, www.totorinews.com reports.
According to Bar. Dalung, there was no crisis between the NFF and the Sports Ministry, but the bone of contention was the lack of proper retirement of funds released by the Federal government to the NFF for the World Cup in Russia last year, which is one of the problems of the present NFF board.
“NFF should give proper retirement of funds released to them for the World Cup and that was misconstrued as crisis. That can’t be crisis. I was only doing my job to demand for them to do what is right.” Dalung said.
“The release of funds is tied to proper retirement of earlier funds given. In government, if the Ministry of Youths and Sports cannot give proper retirement or account of funds given to it, the President will not give more money again to the ministry,” he added.
“So, it is not that the non release was deliberate. It is just that tied to the fact that retirement of what was earlier given so that we can give you more.
“I think the NFF have some challenges in terms of understanding what retirement is and now the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youths and Sports will guide them on this,” Dalung further said on problem of retirement of funds.
The Plateau state -born administrator also informed that another problem the NFF has exhibited over the years is lack of respect to his office as a minister in Nigeria and Amaju Pinnick, NFF President had to apologize to him over this recently in Benin.
“In Benin , NFF President ambushed me when I went on an official visit to Edo state. I was about going out when the governor said we will do something unusual, that can i allow him to bring in someone to see me, I asked the governor who the person is and he told me. In view of our relationship i could not say it is impossible.
“So the NFF President came and i said that if there is anything they had done that would have angered me , they are asking for my forgiveness and I said we are all human beings. To err is human and to forgive is divine.
“That basically took place and I told them they must respect my office as the minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Dalung also identified another major problem as the inability of the NFF to open the space in Nigeria football to accommodate more people who have interest in the development of the round leather game in the country.
“NFF must open up the space in football to accommodate more people. The crisis in Nigeria football is all about the leadership. It is about narrowing of the space.
The country of over 180million people and you are narrowing the space. You know there will be trouble, there will be throwing of stones and other troubles because there are so many interests,” he concluded.
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