Perhaps, the Nigeria Football Federation’s (NFF) President, Amaju Pinnick, was too hasty in announcing the federation’s decision to team up with other young elements in African football to engineer a change in the leadership of the continental soccer governing body, CAF.
The incumbent CAF president, Issa Hayatou, a Camerounian, has been the boss of the body since 1988 when he took over from Ethiopia’s Yidnekatchew Tessema. But a group of young football administrators, including Nigeria’s Amaju Pinnick, recently decided to effect changes in the leadership of CAF and chose Madagascar’s Ahmad Ahmad as the preferred candidate in the forthcoming CAF polls.
A lot of football enthusiasts have applauded the move, especially now that the world body has a group of young men trying to reshape the global game. But the applause in Nigeria may have come too early as some officials holding certain CAF positions have come out to distance themselves from Pinnick’s alliance with the progressive administrators.
The first inkling that things might not be all well with the Nigerian position on the polls came at the weekend when Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung, tried to distance the country from the support for Ahmad’s candidature.
The minister, who said Nigeria would first consider regional interests before every other consideration, yesterday summoned an emergency meeting of the NFF where the issues would be thrashed out.
SOURCE: http://guardian.ng/sport/hayatous-men-fight-back-minister-summons-emergency-nff-meeting/
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