The current board of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) headed by Amaju Pinnick is almost always engulfed in perpetual crises. For instance, the dust, created by the Federation Cup impasse, in which the football calendar imbalance affected the event, is yet to settle.

There were various intrigues at the NFF’s Annual General Assembly while the composition of the electoral and appeals committee for the forthcoming election is also causing ripples among stakeholders. The continental representatives will begin their quest for honours at a time the domestic league is still on break just as the CHAN Eagles lost to Ghana’s Galaxies in the first leg of the last qualifier for the tournament. Their opponents have been in camp for over 10 weeks but the home Eagles only converged two weeks ago, which played a large part in the first leg defeat.

The crucial second leg comes up tomorrow in Abuja and New Telegraph wishes the Eagles B team all the best hoping that the squad will be able to bring smiles to the faces of Nigerians by qualifying for the continental tournament which will go some way in assuaging the heartache of missing out Qatar 2022. During the presentation of the 10-year master plan to President Muhammadu Buhari last week, Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare, said the government had disbursed N15 billion to the NFF in seven years and yet the federation still owes bonuses and allowances. Incidentally, the NFF boss, Pinnick has repeatedly touted the numerous sponsorship deals the body has but this has not reflected in concrete terms in the operations of the federation. We believe with better planning and entrustment of duties to competent hands, the federation will certainly not be swimming in crises, which often tarnish the image of the country.

Only recently, Nigerians woke up to learn about the unfortunate incident involving the country’s U-20 women’s national team players and officials on their way back from Costa Rica, venue of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup. The team crashed out in the quarterfinals but the players showed promise such that a few of them could graduate straight to the Super Falcons team.

The Falconets had flight hitches at the Turkish airport where they spent well over 20 hours sleeping on the floor at the airport. This, we believe, like many other well-meaning Nigerians, is a shame and administrative failure on the part of the NFF. Although the General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi tried to put up a very strong defence for the Federation, we still feel the situation should have been better managed.

Sanusi said: “The NFF did not book the team’s tickets from Costa Rica; FIFA did. FIFA also did not envisage the hitches that saw the team delayed for more than three hours in Bogota, and another one hour in Panama. By the time the team got to Istanbul, the flight to Abuja had left. “Our officials pleaded for compassionate transit visas so as to take the players and officials to a hotel inside the town, but this was not possible as they were informed that Nigeria had been removed from the list of countries whose citizens were issued visa-on-arrival in Turkey. The airline then took the team to a sleeping area at the airport and gave them tickets to have meals every five hours.” The response is definitely not good enough from a body like the NFF. The leader of the delegation of the team, Ruth David, should have made efforts to get her bosses to save the situation.

International airports like that of Turkey have good hotels within and to get five of six rooms for the team would have been good. Another option is to get the Nigerian embassy in Turkey involved to help when they suffered delays on the way. This could have worked. The same David had in the past been involved in some embarrassing issues involving the Falcons, yet she is still in the NFF secretariat as a top official…so sad.

Aside from the travelling hitches, it was reported that the players receive $50 per day (no issues with that) but it was also learnt the players bought their footwear themselves while they only received N40,000 as travelling allowances on arrival in Nigeria. It is unacceptable that a national team will be subjected to this kind of shabby treatment. There was another defence from the NFF on body and foot wears but how can the NFF justify giving the players N40, 000 to travel from Abuja to their respective destinations? In this period that everyone is alert over insecurity, the players have no other option than to embark on road trips. This is cruel and unfair to our national ambassadors.

We recall that the victorious Golden Eaglets team players a few years back were given N10, 000 each to return to their destinations from Abuja. How can the NFF be treating national heroes this way? This is the same federation that prompted the Super Falcons to seize the AWCON trophy they won years back and lock themselves in a hotel in Abuja for over a week over unpaid allowances and bonuses. We make bold to say the NFF should be alive to its responsibilities because there are many flaws in the administrative set up of the body. The head of the competitions’ department should be liable for the Federation Cup crisis just as head of protocol and leader of delegation to Costa Rica should be queried for the embarrassment in Turkey. Enough of the businessas- usual style of the NFF in the discharge of national assignments. Nigeria is bigger than any individual and the image of the country means so much because of the bragging rights at continental and global levels.

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