By Patrick Omorodion

When the former Chairman of the Nigeria Football Association, Mr Anthony Kojo Williams said in the heat of his turbulent short reign at the Football House that football is a conduit pipe to siphon government money by both football and government officials, the greatest culprits of the scam never spared him.

Without much ado, the head of the cabal hatched a plot and before anyone could pronounce Kafanchan, he was impeached. Nobody wanted to hear such, not even from one of their own, how much more the head of the federation.

Since that famous pronouncement from Mr Williams, every other Board that came, with the exemption of the current one led by Delta state-born Amaju Pinnick, football budgets have remained bloated and allegedly siphoned for purposes other than football administration.

For the First time in the history of Nigeria’s participation at the FIFA World Cup, the football federation went on a fund drive and through aggressive marketing, and with the support of CAF and FIFA, they were able to raise enough fund for the Super Eagles campaign at the World Cup.

For the first time, CAF which also had a new president in Ahmad provided support for all the five African teams participating at the World Cup to help them prepare well for the Mundial. $500,000 given to each country was by no means small and no wonder preparation was not punctured by the usual lack of money to prepare the Super Eagles. They got a lot of money from FIFA and will get more if the Eagles progress.

One cannot really say how much the NFF got from all their sponsors but it could be safely put at several millions of Naira which has made the federation not to go cap in hand to the sports ministry, its supervising body, for money, for the first time.

That was why Nigerians queried the essence of a fund raiser organised by the Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung for the purpose of the World Cup. They argued that if the NFF which is directly responsible for preparing the Super Eagles to the World Cup has not asked that funds be raised for it to cater for the Eagles participation at the World Cup, what is the money Dalung is then raising meant for?

The minister did not stop at that. In an attempt to prove to the NFF that his ministry was the supervising body the NFF answers to, told the NFF that any amount it raises for the World Cup or gets from the government must be accounted for. It also warned that anybody hoping to go to the World Cup on the budget of the NFF, including board members and journalists should be prepared to fund their trip themselves.

He equally alluded to members of the National Assembly who have always queried the ministry how it spends the money appropriated to it for for its activities, stressing that they should also be prepared to fund their trip to Russia.

He was sounding it clear to everybody that unlike in the past when both the sports ministry and the NFF sponsored people who had no business at competitions to such events, there will be no jamboree for anybody to Russia.

It was shocking then when a list of Nigerians were made public as those on the federal government delegation to Russia to support the Super Eagles. The list included the minister himself and his Works, Transport and Power ministry couterpart, Babatunde Raji Fashola as well as the Lagos state Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode.

The long list which has several top directors of the sports ministry also included President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Engineer Habu Gumel. Why Gumel when we are neither going for the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth  or African Games which NOC handles?

So if all the officials on the federal government delegation are not members of the football federation and have no clear cut function to carry out in Russia for the Eagles, why are they going to Russia? Is this not a jamboree which the minister swore will not be allowed?

And on whose account are they going to Russia or is the minister telling Nigerians that each of the delegation member paid for his or her trip to Russia? One is forced to ask the minister how much the Fund Raising committee he set up was able to raise and whether it is the same money he has diverted to sponsor the delegation.

I want to believe that what Kojo Williams observed many years ago for which he was pushed out of then NFA is still happening today. Officials hide under the cover of sponsoring or supporting sports to siphon government money.

This remains why the same government and its officials who are always quick to say that government cannot fund sports alone will never agree to hands off sports. They even frustrate sponsors who fund sports as their officials who manage sponsors money never give account of the money received. The sports minister, I remember, complained on his appointment in 2015 that he was once short-changed of his ecstacode allowance as a member of the federal government delegation to the Mali 2002 Nations Cup.

It didn’t occur to him that he was on a jamboree that time because he had nothing to contribute to the Eagles. He ruled that this year there will be no jamboree but has stylishly embarked on one to Russia under the guise that they are going to support the Eagles. A clear case of ‘do what I say and not what I do’.