By Jacob Ajom
More facts have emerged from the meeting between the Nigerian delegation led by Chairman of the National Sports Commission Mallam Shehu Dikko and FIFA President at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich on Tuesday.
Following the mass resignation of the Ibrahim Gusau-led Board of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF after intense pressure from the public, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ordered for a comprehensive reform of Nigerian football.
The President’s message underlined the severity of how bad Nigerian football has dropped in form and structure, that it has become a national emergency.
In line with the president’s order, the National Sports Commission which supervises activities of the NFF has mooted the idea of setting up a ‘’normalisation committee’ that will midwife the reform and organise fresh election for a new NFF board.
That was the proposal the Nigerian delegation took to Zurich for FIFA’s ratification.
Sports Vanguard gathered that FIFA President Gianni Infantino and his team welcomed the Nigerian delegation and held “fruitful talks” with them, but held back an outright approval for the proposed ‘normalisation committee’, pending a visit by a FIFA delegation to Nigeria.
World football governing body FIFA will be heavily involved in the selection process of individuals who will be in the normalisation committee of the NFF.
The mass resignation of the Ibrahim Musa Gusau-led board of the NFF created a vacuum that is expected to be filled by a normalisation committee to run the affairs of Nigerian football for a period of time. While initial reports say the committee will last for around three months, sources say it could be as long as six months to one year in the hope that the reforms are wholly and thoroughly carried out by the National Sports Commission (NSC).
FIFA will play a huge role on the members, who will all be made to undergo the mandatory integrity andeligibility test like all executive committee members of FIFA affiliates. To that extent, the NSC are locked in talks with FIFA for the process following Tuesday’s successful meeting at the football governing headquarters.
The leading candidate to head the committee is AbdulHakeem Uthman Mustapha, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) who is the choice of majority of power brokers in the presidency His profile from Nigerian website Sports Village Square, revealed that Mustapha is a member of FIFA’s Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination Committee, a position that gives him direct exposure to the global football governing body and its administrative framework.
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