NFF: We don't share in coaches entitlements

The crisis rocking the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) might be not be over., as there has been so much rumour about events at the Glass House that the NFF yesterday felt it was necessary to answer to some of them.


Yesterday, the NFF General Secretary, Musa Amadu, was forced to come out against the allegation that officials of the Federation get shares from the national teams’ coaches’ salaries and allowances.  

He described the allegation as ‘totally senseless and baseless,’ while describing as idle souls the sources of the allegations.

Amadu challenged the proponents of the allegations to bring out the facts.

“I want to say without mincing words that nobody in the NFF, not among members of the executive committee, or the management, or staff, or the sub-Committees, have been sharing any money with any of our Coaches.

“I really want the persons vending these  scandalous and scurrilous stories go to town with the facts available to them. We would like to see those facts.

“We pay all our coaches what is due to them in salaries, allowances and bonuses. For salaries, they are paid less the appropriate Personal Income Tax and directly into their bank accounts. The said tax is then paid directly to the Federal Inland Revenue Service, and the records are there for anyone to verify.”

He said the purpose of the rumours is to derail Nigeria’s 2014 FIFA World Cup plan after all other methods by the detractors have failed woefully.

“Otherwise, why is the issue only just propping up less than 50 days to the opening match of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil?

“We are not deterred. The NFF is fully focused on the task of preparing the Super Eagles adequately for a brilliant outing at the FIFA World Cup finals in Brazil. Nothing can distract us.”

Also coming in to defend the Federation, Technical Committee Chairman, Chris Green, denied the report in some national dailies that the NFF and Coach Stephen Keshi lied to Nigerians about the provisional list of Super Eagles for the 2014 FIFA World Cup finals.

The report had claimed that Coach Keshi did not submit any list at Tuesday’s Technical Committee meeting and that the NFF and Keshi tried to manage ‘a bad case’.

He said: “There was no bad case at all. We met with Coach Keshi and we discussed the programme of preparation for the World Cup, and everyone was happy.

“It was wrong for anyone to say that NFF and Keshi lied to Nigerians. We are responsible citizens and diligent in what we do, and will never take the nation and its people for a ride.

“The list of players is ready. As we said, Coach Keshi is making more consultations and the list will be released next week. We have not defaulted in any way, because the deadline for the submission of
provisional list of 30 players to remains May 13.”