by Mark Bassey

Festus Adegboye Onigbinde, who is a former FIFA Advisor and member of FIFA Study Group, has said that the world football governing body cannot intimidate Nigeria.

FIFA on Wednesday, suspended the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) for government interference in football matters, after Alhaji Aminu Maigari was sacked by a court last week.

Onigbinde insisted that what Nigeria should be doing right now, is take important decisions on how football is run in the country.

“You don’t expect a government to invest huge sums of money in the running of football in Nigeria and still be handicapped in making some contributions to football in the country,” Onigbinde said.

“If FIFA doesn’t consider Nigerian government sponsorship of football and the huge sums of money in day to day running of the game, as well as sponsorship of national teams in world tournaments as government interference, but intervening as a result of court order to ensure peace and order as interference, then my advice is that the government of Nigeria should hands off entirely the finance and sponsorship of the game in the country.

“Let the administrators removed by the NFF Congress be reinstated and start sponsoring football all alone without the support of the Federal Government of Nigeria and see how effective and efficient it would be.

“If FIFA says we should bring them back, let’s bring them back and let them go and look for the money to run their affairs because giving them money will also amount to interference.

“What the Nation should do now is to sit down and restructure our football physically and technically. What I expect the Nigerian government to tell FIFA is that they have let go and have left them to run the game without expecting their money. They should also tell the state governments who have been spending so much on football to hands off, same to the local governments to hands off.

“Government should not be offended by the stance of FIFA, they should take it to be that Fifa have taken away a load from them. And if tomorrow, we decide to bring ourselves together to call ourselves the Nigeria Soccer Association, at least that one is not under FIFA and if we decide to play among ourselves Fifa will not say we cannot play our football, they only said we cannot play among the FIFA member nations. And maybe for the next three years we can decide to be playing among ourselves, at least FIFA cannot arrest us for playing locally.

“And, while we are on break, we should be restructuring. For now the government should listen to FIFA and reinstate them for them to run their own football. They should not intimidate us by this suspension.

“If I were the minister I won’t be budged because football is dead both administratively and technically in the country and we need time to re-organize our football. If this suspension would help us to achieve this then let it be.”