By Ime Bassey
In view of the August 1, 2011 inaugurated sports committee by the Minister of Sports/Chairman, National Sports Commission, NSC, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman, to review the NFF status, decree 101 and propose a new frame work for it in terms of financial autonomy and election procedure, FIFA/CAF technical committee member, Chief Adegboyega Onigbinde has stated that, it a faceless reality.

He bared his mind on the issue while speaking to  Vanguard Sports in an exclusive interview.

He said: “We are not yet ready to face the reality of football administration in this country. All the people in the committee are respectable persons with good football background but the solution to our football problem rest in the FIFA status. Let everybody go back to the FIFA status and read it very well, then we would have found the solution to our problem.

“I keep saying that we don’t have a single football club in this country, most of the so-called clubs, are parastatals. And so long as this continues, it will take us a long time to be where we are and the world want us to be,” Chief Onigbinde stated.

Onigbinde, Maigari and Yusuf Suleiman

He continued: “People are talking about the election into the NFF; while some others are saying it would have stated from the state. I want to say it categorically, that both set of persons are wrong. Election should start from the club level. The clubs would elect their officers who in turn will send representatives to elect members in the LG FA; they too will meet to elect state FA before it gets to the national level. This is what FIFA status says.

“Article 13 or 14 of the FIFA status states clearly that, every club in a country must be able to run its affairs independently of, and without any interference from any third party. Does this give the legislature any power to decide the name the NFA should bear? All football bodies which include clubs most have their board members democratically elected.

This is where our football must start from before talking about anything. The way we are going, more confusion will be caused. The bone of contention which the parallel FA is fighting has to do with the nomenclature of the football body.

“We are joking with football in this country because we are not ready yet do what it  entails. I am one of those people who believe that our football needs revamping, but the ways and means we must be very careful about. If there is anything short of what I have said in their (NSC Committee) report, then it amounts to rubbish,” he said.

“I was among the pioneer members of the board of professional football in this country in 1990, we set certain conditions that any club that wants to go professional most abide with, up till now, nobody cares about those conditions again.

Because if this conditions had been adhered to, I do not think some club sides would have emerged and our football would have been what it ought to be.

“Some part of the conditions were that, before two to three years, each club must have its own stadium, registered office and administrative department well-structured and organized, have you found any? And they want our football to grow,” Onigbinde added