Budget Defence: Senate Committee snubs NFF over minister’s absence

AFTER Wednesday’s threat by the National Assembly that it could stop the National Sports Commission (NSC) and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) from getting any money from the Federal budget in the 2015 fiscal year, the NFF leadership yesterday faced another disappointment when they were turned back by the Senate Committee on Sports at the budget defence hearing.

  The Senate, The Guardian gathered, expressed their dissatisfaction with the NFF’s attitude to the budget issue. The legislators were angered that only the NFF General Secretary, Musa Amadu and some members of the management team reported for the session.

  Amadu led the NFF management team to the budget defence in the absence of the federation’s president to avoid a repeat of the incident where the House of Representatives condemned the football body for failing to show up on Wednesday.

 The committee regretted that after over two weeks of notice, both the NSC leadership and the NFF president, Amaju Pinnick, refused to appear at the National Assembly, adding that there was nothing the committee would discuss with Musa Amadu and his team in the absence of the minister of sports.The committee members, who asked the NFF general secretary and his team to return on a later date, insisted that the minister of sports, the NSC director general and the president of the NFF must appear before them to defend their proposals, stressing that it would not discuss any budget without the top sports officers.

  The team was ordered to come back today by 2.00 p.m. with the Minister of Sports, Tammy Danagogo and the NSC Director General, Gbenga Elegbeleye, as well as the NFF president, Amaju Pinnick.