No fewer than 16 of the 37 state Football Associations (FA) have taken world football governing body FIFA to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over a proposed plan to set up a Normalisation Committee for Nigerian football.
“At least, we now know who are the real enemies of Nigerian football,” one top official said.
“This is a direct affront to the reform ordered by the Nigerian Government on the back of some rather disappointing results internationally as well as serious governance deficits.”
This move is being spearheaded by a chairman of one of the Southwest states, and he has reportedly invested huge personal resources in this venture.
The state FAs had proposed to FIFA during their recent official visit to Nigeria a caretaker committee to be headed and dominated by them following the resignation of the entire NFF executive committee led by Ibrahim Gusau.
The state FAs have held sway in the governance of Nigerian football since then NFF president Sani Lulu pulled through a 2010 NFF Statute that had a 44-person NFF Congress dominated by 37 FAs.
The Congress recently passed an amendment to these Statutes to expand to 52 persons and still dominated by the state FAs.
The direct consequence of this dominance is that the state FAs have also dominated the NFF executive committee.
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