• Porbeni, Bako back moves to restructure Nigerian football 

As Nigerians await the “normalisation committee” to be put in place to run the nation’s football for the next three months, the National Sports Commission (NSC) has claimed that the Federal Government gave the embattled president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Ibrahim Gusau, everything he needed to succeed.

The NSC said yesterday that it was forced to start planning to put in place a normalisation committee to replace the NFF elective congress fixed for September in Lafia, Nasarawa State, when 10-time African champions, Super Falcons, were eliminated from the Africa playoff for the 2027 World Cup by the Banyana Banyana of South Africa in Morocco.

The commission said that the exit of the Super Falcons, which had participated in all editions of the FIFA World Cup since 1991, added to the growing frustration over Nigeria’s inability to qualify for international championships.

An official of the NSC told The Guardian yesterday that there is no going back on the decision to ease out Gusau.

“Ordinarily, the NSC was not ready to go into any form of crisis, and that is why we gave Gusau all that he needed to succeed. But it has got to that level when we can’t back him any longer, going by the free fall of our football at all levels.

“When the Super Eagles failed to qualify for the World Cup, we still gave Gusau and his board all the moral and financial support they needed to excel at the AFCON in Morocco. We ensured the Super Eagles got the key to their houses in Abuja, as well as the monetary reward promised them by President Bola Tinubu for their outing in Cote d’Ivoire. The same thing we did for the Super Falcons. All their match entitlements were paid through the NFF.

“They had the free hands to pick their coaches and other personnel. The NFF should tell Nigerians the area that the NSC did not support them. No amount of sentiment will stop us from doing what is right for the nation’s sports, including football,” the official stated.

On the normalisation committee, the NSC official said: “To set up a normalisation committee, you need FIFA’s approval, and we have done so. But FIFA needs someone it can trust in your country to head such a committee. Someone like former NFF President (name withheld) has a role to play in this normalisation committee.

“We have submitted our proposal to the Presidency, and once we get the approval, Nigerians will hear from us.”
Backing the NSC’s move on the country’s football, former Director of Sports in Delta State, Seigha Porbeni, described it as “most refreshing.”

“I appreciate the coming out of the NSC,” Porbeni told The Guardian yesterday. “Yes, it implies proactiveness that we truly have a listening NSC that is hungry for positive changes. This is a strong signal to Federations that the end to ‘na our man’ syndrome is over.

“I use this medium to humbly request the NSC to seize this opportunity to review the eligibility of those that currently make up the board and those who ought to be in it for a more robust productivity.

“Secondly, I know we have highly qualified sports psychologists in the NFF; if given a free hand to work, they would produce a much better result from the Super Falcons.

“The NSC should look at how much external interference there was in the team selection, which the coach had from ‘above,” Porbeni stated.

A former Chairman of Sokoto State FA, Danladi Bako, also backs the immediate removal of the Ibrahim Gusau-led NFF board.

Bako said: “In years gone by, the NFF board led by Ibrahim Gusau would have been sacked by now. Their continued stay in office after a woeful first tenure makes past military regimes look messianic because during General Babangida or General Abacha’s regimes, the monumental failures of the current board would not have lasted this long before they got fired. It is self-serving, immoral and insensitive to throw the emotions of 200 million football-loving Nigerian fans into a ping-pong, ding-dong and topsy-turvy clanger,” Bako said.

He added: “I was the producer of NTA’s Mastersports in 1992 and galvanised the fight and advocacy for FIFA to increase Africa’s slots from two to five. We qualified for the first time in 1994. And 32 years later, we can’t qualify for the 2022 and 2026 World Cups. Even at the last stages of the last AFCON, in Cote d’Ivoire, the president graciously released N12 billion for the campaign, yet we came back empty-handed. I am not sure the sports commission and the NFF have accounted for that money.

“They will scream if auditors want to scrutinise their books.

“I imagine the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s pain from Wednesday’s WAFCON defeat in Morocco by South Africa that the Super Falcons did not qualify for the Women’s football World Cup coming up in Brazil next year. That we lost out at the quarter-final is embarrassing enough; we simply did not play well, and we scraped through the whole tournament unconvincingly.

“At the NFF, they will tell you to blame the coaches, players, pitches and, most incredibly, to blame “bad luck”.

No, it is sheer incompetence that produces these kinds of results. I was FA Chairman in Sokoto State and Special Adviser to Minister of Sports Jim Nwobodo, when we plotted how to win the football gold at Atlanta ’96 Olympic Games, so I speak out of experience,” Bako stated.