... Our FIFA Match Agent acted in best interest of Nigeria
The Nigeria Football Federation has rejected insinuations by
the Minister of Youth and Sports, Barrister Solomon Dalung in a television
interview that the issue of Nigeria Olympic football team being stranded in
Atlanta, United States of America was a hoax.
Chairman of the NFF Media and Publicity Committee, Hon.
Suleiman Yahaya-Kwande, who is a ranking member of Nigeria’s House of
Representatives, said the entire Board was shocked by the insinuations, as the
NFF President, Mr. Amaju Pinnick, had been giving them updates of useful
meetings he has been having with the Sports Minister since he arrived in Brazil on
Tuesday.
“The NFF Board and Management are taken aback by these
insinuations. The NFF President has been telling us of meeting between him and
the Minister on how to avoid the kind of situation we got into in the USA in
the future. So, the Minister’s latest statements are a bombshell.
“We are not openly challenging the Minister, but we must set
the records straight. To start, we do not have any partnership with Delta
Airlines, a company that we owe much gratitude for the way it came to the
rescue to airlift our team to Brazil. The names of NFF’s partners and sponsors
are known to the public.
“Secondly, the NFF is not aware of any receipt that was
presented to the Minister for airlifting the U23 team from Atlanta to Manaus. I
am aware that the Minister himself requested for the phone number of our FIFA
Match Agent (Mr. Jairo Pachon, who has been working with the NFF since 2009)
when everybody became desperate about how the team would go to Brazil. The NFF
President gave him the phone number, and the Minister himself asked Mr. Pachon
to go ahead and charter an aircraft, and Pachon reverted that the amount would
be $174,000, as against the $300,000 that was bandied earlier. However, the
money did not reflect in the airline company’s bank account within the deadline
it gave to us, so the service was cancelled. We insist that Mr. Pachon acted in
the best interest of Nigeria.”
Yahaya-Kwande also took the opportunity to react to earlier
allegations of the Federation bloating the football team’s list. “Which persons
did we increase the team with? There were two alternate players, the team media
officer, the team coordinator, the team’s equipment manager and the team’s
technical officer, who have always been part of the team’s crew, and who by
global standard are required by the team. When it was made clear that they
would no longer be taken care of, we told them to return to Nigeria.
“As I speak with you, the only NFF top officials at the
Olympics are the NFF Technical Director and the NFF President. I would like to
be proved wrong on this.
“The NFF Board has always displayed integrity in all its
financial dealings and have always communicated to the Minister on every
financial transaction and detail. On this too, we would like to be proved
wrong.”
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