By Eddie Akalonu
Pioneer member of the Nigeria Football League board, Alhaji Sani Usman has put the blame of the current crisis in the Nigeria Premier League strictly on members  of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF.

Maigari

According to Usman, top NFF Executive Committee members are hell bent on re-asserting their strangle-hold on the league body.

“You see, I would put the blame on what is happening to the league body strictly on top shots of the FA because they still want to exercise full control on the league and it’s vast resources”, he said, adding, “If you will recall in 2003 when we were asked to prepare ground and set modalities for our league to take off, we did our job and brought the best innovations.

The result of which was an agreement by then FA, the Football League board we constituted and all stake holders- that is club owners, managers, coaches and players representatives. We agreed  that the board should have a measure of autonomy to operate on it’s own.

There is no doubt that the league from then on added value to our football, because besides getting the sponsorship to runs its course, there was in-built  control, disciplinary arbitration and measures. There was acknowledgment of the potentials of players in the local league and recognition that if more resources could be attracted, football in Nigeria would be on the rise,”he disclosed.

Alhaji Usman, a broadcast journalist by profession and a former Kano Pillars FC boss, however, said that the FA members saw the direction the league was going and felt threatened, hence the move to re-assert authority and control.

“They are the ones causing problems. But they ‘ve gotten it wrong because even with their handling of the national teams alone ,the Super Eagles for instance, things have been bungled.

The moment they recognise that some of these assignments are bigger than they can cope with and let go, peace will reign and football will move forward,” he said, adding,  “we could see it’s all getting football back to the dark side.

I believe the FA have their hands full and any addition will cause more chaos. So, they should let the league have its autonomy as originally planned. So the moment the FA stops interfering in the league body, we would see better growth of our league,” he stressed