Sports Minister Rejects Autonomy For NFF

Sports Minister Rejects Autonomy For NFF

Posted: May 24, 2013

By Richard Jideaka, Abuja:

The minister of sports and Chairman of the National Sports Commission, Bolaji Abdullahi, yesterday dealt the planned legitimisation of the Nigeria Football Federation a big blow with his presentation at the public hearing put together by the House Committee on Sports.

 Aside from the sports minister's  presentation, there were so many contentious issues raised by speakers who picked holes on the proposed bill for autonomy for the NFF as speaker after speaker could not reconcile the independence of the NFF and being funded by government of the federation.

Abdullahi argued that the bill has completely whittled down the powers of the sports  minister to that of merely controlling the finance of the body, pointing out that if the NFF must operate as a parastatal it must have a supervisory body.

"Inasmuch as I am in full support of the NFF being autonomous, I also believe there should be a measure of control from a superior body with an authority to mediate in some very critical issues," he said.

"Reducing the power of the minister to mere financial control will not really be good. The minister should be able to have a measure of control so as to step in as we did recently during the case of the NFF and coach Keshi.

 "As it is right now, the NFF does not have the financial muscle to stand on its own, so they have to remain as a parastatal under the ministry."

He said that if the authority of the minister is totally removed from the new bill, it may provide room for some level of recklessness by the NFF president who may see himself as equal with the minister.

Speaking on the general general in the new bill, Malam Bolaji stated that the NFF president must not be given the absolute power to hire and fire the general secretary, noting that it will allow for abuse.

In their summation, former sports minister Adamu Gimba and former NFF boss John Obakpolo said the NFF cannot be seeking autonomy when they are still financially dependent on government and posited that autonomy will take the game back ards as that was the least of their problem.

"I cannot understand why the new bill is seeking for autonomy for NFF when they have unanswered questions of funding. Actually the private sector they are relying on also depend on government for support," Obakpolor said. ------------------ Complete Sports