Football crisis: Popo fingers Odegbami, Fashanu, Ekeji

[MrVan]

By Inalegwu Shaibu, Abuja

Fresh facts have emerged to show how two foremost Nigerian footballers, Mr. Segun Odegbami, and John Fashanu collaborated with members of the National Sport Commission to scuttle Super Eagles' chances at the 2010 World Cup hosted in South Africa.

The details of how Odegbami and Fashanu worked behind closed doors to frustrate the national team at the 2010 World Cup were revealed by the Secretary General of Association of Professional Footballers in Nigeria, Mr. Austin Popo during the Senate Public Hearing on sports.

Mr. Popo who appeared on Monday, before the Senate Committee on Sports probing the dwindling fortunes of Nigerian football told the bemused Senators that the plans to frustrate Super Eagles' preparation for South Africa were hatched in a meeting convened by Odegbami with football stakeholders at Nicon Luxury Hotel, Abuja.

He told the committee that the plan was to create crisis in the football house ahead of the election of Sani Lulu as the chairman of the Nigerian Football Association, NFA. He also added that those behind the crisis bedeviling the Nigerian football have government backing, stressing that government interferences have been with Nigerian football for long. Sports minister Bolaji Abdullahi, big shots in sports and Director General of the National Sports Commission, Patrick Ekeji were all there. Said Popo, a one time fine midfielder:

"I must tell you sir that  I was more pained when I was invited to a meeting on the 3rd of May, 2010 in Nicon Luxury. Segun Odegbami did not invite me to that meeting; it was John Fashanu that invited me to that meeting.

"But when I got to the meeting, it was him (Odegbami) that was convening the meeting under the auspices of Save Nigeria Football. Gara Gombe was there, Salisu Abubakar, Hon. Lumumba Adeh, a lot of us were there. But I must confess that a lot of us that came to that place, came believing that there was a programme that would actually help Nigerian football.

"Gara Gombe asked a question that who was going to fund the project? I now saw that the whole idea was now going to the fact that because the performance of the NFF was tied to the performance of the national team, once the national team did not succeed, it then meant the public would have a different perception of the national team.

"So we were now planning to do a protest march and the timing of the protest march was so crucial to them because we did not want the team to go to South Africa and come before the protest march.

"In the meeting, Segun Odegbami called the DG (Pat Ekeji) when Gara Gombe asked him that question on how it would be funded.  He was speaking with the DG and the DG told him to go ahead.

"So at the end of the day, the players felt that the protest march was going to be a distraction to the national team and the members of the national team belong to the union. We now said we were  going to do a counter protest and that protest never held.

"We should not just come here and deceive everybody. We all have responsibilities, so the crisis in Nigerian football purely is tied to issue of election and because that was going to be the first time in the history of Nigerian football that the office of the National Sport Commission or DG would not be able to determine who becomes the NFF chairman, that was the beginning of the crisis."

Popo also told the committee that Chief Odegbami and the former Super Eagles Coach, Christian Chukwu are the ones responsible for the legal problems bedeviling Nigerian football.

He said Odegbami being the chairman of board of Trustees of NFU has the powers to stop the litigation bedeviling football development, but chose not to.

He said "Odegbami, Chukwu and Adokie Amesiemeka are all members of board of trustees of the association which approves the litigation. When you go to court, you need the permission of the board of trustees to go to court. To me,  the litigation bedeviling football, the board of trustees is the one doing it. So nobody can come here and tell me he is not behind those litigation."

 

Vanguard Nigeria