Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr. Solomon Dalung, has appealed to the National Assembly to inculcate FIFA rules into Nigerian laws as a way of curtailing frequent crisis in Nigerian football. Dalung, who made the plea when he appeared separately before the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Sports yesterday, maintained that without domesticating FIFA statutes, any aggrieved sports stakeholder especially in football, was free to approach conventional courts to seek redress.
The Minister alongside the Permanent Secretary, Christian Ohaa; NFF 2nd Vice President, Shehu Dikko, and other senior officials of the sports ministry and NFF first appeared before the House Committee chaired by Hon. Goni Bukar Lawan. Thereafter, Dalung with the NYSC DG, Brigadier General Zakari Kazaure, and other ministry officials met with the Senate Committee on Youths and Sports. Dalung who took time to explain that the lingering NFF crisis has brought Nigerian football to its knees, appealed to both NASS committees to wisely open window of dialogue with both the Amb. Chris Giwa group and the NFF led by Amaju Pinnick in a bid to resolve their differences.
“From issues both groups have raised, this committee must place Giwa and Pinnick side by side for fairness. Both parties have a way of presenting their reasons. We are sandwitched between FIFA rules and what our laws say. “I don’t think that FIFA encourages any country to jettison its own laws but at the same time, we have to be careful not to attract their sanctions. Legality will not solve our problems,” the minister said. In their separate remarks, chairman Senate Committee on Sports, Senator Obinna Ogba and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Hon. Lawan, assured of their readiness to end the leadership tussle, saying there is really no crisis in the NFF, as there is no dispute whatsoever that Pinnick remains president of the nation’s football body.