FIFA May Ban Nigeria Monday

FIFA May Ban Nigeria Monday

 

Nigeria may be heading for international football wilderness if calls by FIFA for the Chris Giwa faction of the Nigeria Football Federation to stop parading itself as executive committee members are not heeded.

World football governing body, FIFA, last week warned that if by 8am monday Chris Giwa and his fellow board members continue to lay claim to being elected to the executive committee of the NFF, the country will automatically be banned from all football related activities.
This will include automatic disqualification of the Super Eagles from defending the Africa Cup of Nations title.

However, Giwa has insisted that he will not give up his claim to be Nigeria Football Federation president.

In the letter signed by FIFA’s Secretary General, Jerome Valcke, the Emergency Committee of the body had also in the ruling directed that the composition of the Executive Board of the NFF should return to how it was on August 25 before Giwa and his colleagues imposed themselves on Nigerian football.

“The NFF Executive Committee as it was composed on 25 August, (meaning under the presidency of Mr. Aminu Maigari) should then convene a first Extraordinary General Assembly as soon as possible to elect the members of the electoral committees and a second Extraordinary General Assembly in order to proceed with the elections of the new NFF office bearers,” stressed the directive from Zurich.

But in spite of his election (on August 26) not being recognized by FIFA, Giwa insists on the legitimacy of his claims to be NFF president.
“I remain the president of the NFF, a legitimate congress elected me and that is how it is,” Giwa told BBC Sport.

“What I have said is that anyone that is aggrieved has the right to appeal to the NFF appeal committee. If an appeal committee or the Court of Arbitration for Sport sits today and quashes my election, I will humbly vacate office.”

Should Giwa refuse to leave and the ban comes into force tomorrow, it means the African champions would not be able to play their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier on Wednesday against South Africa in Cape Town.

The Confederation of African Football says if the Super Eagles miss that match they would be disqualified from the qualifying campaign.
The ban will only be lifted when the NFF board as it stood on August 25, with Maigari as president, is allowed back to their offices to work.

Nigeria was banned from global football for nine days in July for government interference in the running of the football federation when Maigari was forced out of his post by a court ruling.

After his reinstatement, he was voted out of office by the NFF’s executive committee a few days later. However, FIFA did not accept this and Maigari was once again back as president in August.