By Patrick Omorodion
That Nigeria’s Executive Committee member of both the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and  the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA), Dr. Amos Adamu was suspended by FIFA from all football related matters for three years last November is no longer news.

It is also no longer news that having listened to the defence put by Dr. Adamu and his co-accused in the cash-for-vote scandal for the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup nomination, Reynald Temarii that FIFA president, Joseph Sepp Blatter made a declaration that “there are devils in our society and some of these devils you find them in football.

Blatter in upholding the decision of FIFA’s Ethics Committee, told the world that both Adamu and Temarii could appeal the decision if they are not satisfied with the outcome, adding that they could go further to the Court of Arbitration in Sports (CAS) as well as the Swiss Federal Court, the final point if they still feel cheated.

The Swiss-born football administrator however ended by stressing that if Adamu and Temarii fail at CAS, they are unlikely to get the decision upturned by the Swiss court which he said rarely goes against the decision of CAS.

First, Blatter, believed to be a close friend of Adamu, would not have said there are devils in football if he didn’t believe in the evidence submitted by the Sunday Times of London. Second, he would not have advised them to follow the legal process up till the Swiss court if they objected to the Ethics Committee’s ruling, with an affirmation that the Swiss court hardly upturns decisions taken by CAS.

Any better credence to this fact than Wednesday’s decision of the same Swiss Federal court on the case involving the Egyptian football player Essam El Hadary, Al-Ahly Sporting Club, FC Sion and FIFA, following the decision of El Hadary to terminate his contract with Al-Ahly Sporting Club which the world body posted on its website?

The FIFA statement read thus: FIFA is pleased to note that the Swiss Federal Court has dismissed both the appeals lodged respectively by the player Essam El Hadary and by the FC Sion Association against the decision passed by the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) on 1 June 2010.

The case involved the Egyptian football player Essam El Hadary, Al-Ahly Sporting Club, FC Sion and FIFA, and followed the decision of El Hadary to terminate his contract with Al-Ahly Sporting Club.

In particular, this means that the decision of the first instance deciding body, i.e. the Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) of FIFA, concerning the sporting sanctions imposed on the player and the Swiss professional club FC Sion remains unchanged.

The player shall therefore be imposed a restriction of four months on his eligibility to participate in any official football match and FC Sion shall serve a ban from registering any new players for the next two registration periods.

Another open fact on the Adamu-Temarii saga is that while both the Nigeria Football Association, NFA and the Confederation of African Football, CAF are foot-dragging on Adamu’s case, the Oceania Football Confederation has already replaced their own who had a lighter case and sanction than Adamu.

The first sign that Dr Adamu still wanted to remain relevant in Nigeria’s football matters despite the FIFA suspension was when he queried the NFA over its nomination of Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima for next month’s election into the CAF Executive Committee even while still abroad after the Ethics Committee trial.

Another sign was the stoic silence on the saga from CAF whose members formed the bulk of persons accused of one scandal or the other. This followed its recent statement that Adamu can only be replaced by Alhaji Galadima in the election if his Appeal fails.

Unfortunately, the National Sports Commission, the supervising organ of the NFA, which remains a parastatal of government, has kept mute when the country’s name is being dragged into the mud by a bunch of desperate officials of the NFA battling to keep their jobs as Board members, membership that is still being challenged in court.

From the on-going, it shows that Adamu is buying time, not because he is sure of succeeding in his Appeal but because he doesn’t want Alhaji Galadima to get into CAF and FIFA. And CAF is helping in this game by accepting Galadima’s nomination first and turning around again to say that the nomination will only succeed if Adamu’s Appeal fails.

CAF elections has been fixed for February 23, 2011 but no date has been released by FIFA’s Appeal Committee on when it will begin hearing Adamu’s Appeal. So because of one man’s ambition, the entire nation must be held to ransom. If Adamu succeeds in stopping Galadima, it is crystal clear that he may not get any positive result from the Appeals Committee because has never spoken from both sides of the mouth in matters concerning FIFA’s integrity for which the ‘devils’ within must be flushed out.