Adamu and politicians clash over state of Nigerian football

By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year

August 10 – FIFA Executive Committee Amos Adamu (pictured) today told Nigeria’s leaders that there is nothing wrong with football in the country despite the Super Eagles disappointing performance at the World Cup in South Africa.

The House of Representatives have launched an inquiry after the team were knocked out in the first round of the tournament and were briefly banned from playing international football for two years by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan before he lifted the suspension.

“We have won Olympic gold medal before, qualified for the World Cup too,” Adamu told the hearing.

He blamed the Nigerian Football Federation’s decision to sack coach Shaibu Amodu,despite the team finishing third in the African Nations Cup in January, and replace him with Swede Lars Lagerbäck.

“The NFF laid off Amodu too close to the competition,” said Adamu, who is also a member of the Confederation of African Football’s Executive Committee and the President of the West Africa Football Union.

“It shouldn’t have been so.”

Also, in a clear dig at Jonathan, Adamu criticised the amount of Government intervention in Nigerian football for stopping the sport developing.

“Non-professionals should leave sports for the professionals,” he said.

But Kaduna State Commissioner for Sports and Youth Development, Mohammed Abdulazeez, and presumably one of the politicians that the finger was being pointed at, blamed Adamu for Nigeria’s problems.

“It is wrong for people to wonder where the problem of football in Nigeria lies when Adamu himself had said he could not afford to reprimand those who piloted the affairs of the country to the 2010 World Cup because he brought them to office,” he told the inquiry.

“We are about to take the same path we took four years ago, which took us to where we are today.

“That was when some people out of selfish interest decided to bend the rules so as to remove Ibrahim Galadima [the chairman of the NFF] from office; then it was comfortable for them.

“That was how the same people that took us to our present predicament were elected.”

Adamu, though, defended himself against the accusations that he was responsible for the problems.

“Nobody can intimidate me out of sports; it is what I know how to do,” he said.

“Let me also say it here that I will always take responsibility for my actions and those of my workers, but the truth is that most of the people talking have no stake and they don’t know what they are talking about.

“So you can only sympathise with them because they don’t know.”

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