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By FAN Ndubuoke
“The greatest danger Nigerian football faces right now is not that reform will fail. It’s that we can call something reform while preserving the very people, structures and interests that created the failure in the first place.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s directive ordering a comprehensive reform of Nigerian football is, in my opinion, a welcome and long overdue intervention.
I welcome it. Nigerian football has reached a point where pretending that business as usual can continue is no longer an option. The resignation of the leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), after years of growing public dissatisfaction, serious questions about accountability and a decline in the fortunes of some of our national teams, has created a rare opportunity, but I must make my reservation clear: this opportunity must not be wasted.
Nigeria must not respond to decades of football’s decline by simply changing its face and preserving the structure that produced the decline.
We must not remove one group of administrators only to replace them with another group drawn from the same network, who subscribe to the same culture and understand football administration as a permanent political occupation rather than a public trust. This is not the time for cosmetic reforms.
This is the time for a comprehensive diagnosis, independent audit and structural reconstruction of Nigerian football.
AUTONOMY CANNOT MEAN IMMUNITY
For years, Nigerians have been warned against government interference in football, and rightly so. FIFA statutes recognize the importance of autonomy in the administration of football.
The government should not select players, determine match results or manipulate football elections, but we must also be intellectually honest. Autonomy cannot become immunity. The autonomy of football cannot mean freedom from responsibility.
FIFA membership cannot become a shield behind which allegations of corruption, incompetence, financial opacity and institutional decay are shielded from scrutiny.
When it comes to public money, Nigerians have the right to ask questions. Where allegations of wrongdoing arise, the relevant institutions have a responsibility to investigate. Fear of FIFA sanctions must never become an excuse for refusing to address real questions about how Nigerian football has been administered.
The challenge, therefore, is to pursue accountability and reform through a process that is legitimate, credible, transparent and compatible with Nigeria’s international football obligations.
THE AUDIT SHOULD NOT STOP AT THE GLASS HOUSE
If the proposed review and reform exercise is limited to the NFF Secretariat in Abuja, it will fail. Nigerian football’s problems did not begin and end at the Glass House. The examination must extend to the entire football architecture. It must consider the legal and statutory basis of Nigerian football administration; the powers and structure of the NFF Congress; the electoral system; the concentration of power in the office of the President of the NFF; government interventions and football finance; FIFA and CAF funds; sponsorships and commercial agreements; national team expenses; procurement; national championships; grassroots and youth football; coaching development; football academies; women’s football; arbitrage; player welfare and treatment of former internationals. It will also have to examine the relationship between the football administration and the National Sports Commission.
Anything less will be an incomplete exercise and an incomplete diagnosis will not produce a complete cure.
END OF “PRESIDENTIAL SUPREMACY”
One of the structural problems that must be addressed is what I have repeatedly described as Presidential Supremacy. Nigerian football must not be organized around the survival, power and influence of one individual. The President of the Football Association must not become more important than the institution. Football administration must be institutional.
Elected leadership should provide policy direction and oversight, while competent professional managers handle the day-to-day administration of the game. We need clearly defined responsibilities, measurable performance standards, transparency and, above all, institutions capable of surviving changes in leadership. No individual should become bigger than Nigerian football.
DEMOCRATIZE THE FOOTBALL SYSTEM
A football system cannot claim to be truly representative when those who play, coach and manage the game have little say in determining who governs it. Former internationals should not only be remembered during ceremonies. Players, coaches, referees, stakeholders in women’s football and grassroots football must have meaningful representation in the governance structure.
State football associations are important stakeholders, but Nigerian football cannot be built around a dominant voting bloc. The structure of the NFF Congress and the constituency should therefore be reviewed to ensure broader, more democratic and more balanced representation. Football must be governed by a structure that reflects the entire football ecosystem.
PAY-TO-PLAY ALLEGATIONS MUST BE PROPERLY INVESTIGED
Nigeria must also stop pretending that there are no allegations of improper financial influence in player selection. Such allegations have been made over the years by former players, coaches, journalists and other interested parties. Some have been disproved, others remain disputed. No one should be convicted without evidence or due process, but serious charges should not be dismissed without investigation either.
Nigeria needs an independent integrity and ethics mechanism that can investigate allegations surrounding player recruitment, agents, intermediaries and national team selection. The national team shirt must never become a commodity.
Every talented Nigerian child must believe that skill, discipline and performance – not money, knowledge or influence – are the path to representing the country.
WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR REFEREES?
Another important area that requires serious attention is refereeing. Nigeria is one of Africa’s leading footballing nations, but we must ask ourselves why Nigerian referees are not consistently represented at the highest levels of international football with the regularity that a country of our footballing stature should expect. Is the issue training, development, evaluation, fitness, technology, integrity, promotion, or administration?
Comprehensive reform cannot ignore these questions.
BASIC FOOTBALL AND PLAYER WELFARE
Nigeria cannot rebuild football from Abuja alone. We need to go back to the schools, communities and local competitions where talent is first discovered. We need to strengthen youth football, train coaches, regulate academies and create credible pathways from grassroots to the professional game.
The future Super Eagles and Super Falcons play somewhere today. The question is whether our football system will be able to find them, develop them and protect them.
We must also pay more attention to the well-being of former internationals who gave their best years to the country. Not all former players should automatically become administrators, but qualified and competent former internationals should have the opportunity to contribute to coaching, scouting, technical development and football governance.
MY MAJOR
RESERVATION: THE REFORM MUST BE INDEPENDENT
My strongest reservation concerns the structure that will conduct the audit and reform. I have serious concerns about leaving the entire process solely in the hands of the National Sports Commission. This is not a personal attack on anyone. It is an institutional question.
The National Commission for Sport is itself part of the broader administrative architecture of sport within which many of the current challenges have developed.
The legitimate question, therefore, is whether a system can be the sole judge of the system of which it has been a part. The NSC should participate in the process, but should not monopolize it. Nigeria needs an independent, broad and credible reform mechanism.
I therefore propose the establishment of a National Football Reform and Reconstruction Commission, made up of people of proven competence and integrity from football, corporate governance, finance, forensic accounting, law, sports law, coaching, refereeing, sports science, marketing, broadcasting, technology, youth development, women’s football and the private sector. Credible and qualified former national team players should also be represented. The Commission must not become another political committee. Its terms of reference should be clear; its members should be screened for possible conflicts of interest; its findings should be evidence-based and its report should be made public.
THIS MUST BE A REBIRTH, NOT RECYCLING
There will be pressure to act quickly, there will be pressure to hold another election, there will be pressure to fill vacancies and there will certainly be pressure from interests that do not want a thorough examination of the past.
Nigeria must resist the temptation to rush into another election without first addressing the structural problems that have repeatedly undermined the game.
An election is not a reform. Changing face is not a reform. Changing offices is not a reform. Recycling administrators is not a reform.
Nigeria must first verify, investigate, resolve legal and governance issues. It must consult widely, it must redesign the structure of football, it must establish credible systems of transparency and accountability. Only then will we be able to build an electoral framework capable of producing the leadership of a new Nigerian football.
President Tinubu opened the door. The question is whether Nigeria will have the courage to cross it. We can have another election, preserve the same structure and come back in a few years to ask ourselves once again why our football has failed; or we can choose courage.
Nigeria has the talent, Nigeria has the population. Nigeria has passion. Nigeria has history. Nigeria has the trade potential. What we have lacked are institutions that live up to our potential.
I therefore welcome President Tinubu’s intervention, but urge the President, the National Sports Commission, FIFA, CAF, the National Assembly and all stakeholders not to treat this exercise as another routine transition.
This doesn’t have to be business as usual, it doesn’t have to be a reshuffle of offices, it doesn’t have to be a recycling of administrators. Nigeria must use this moment to face the truth, however painful it may be, because until we are ready to identify what has held Nigerian football back, we cannot honestly say we know how to rebuild it.
Nigeria doesn’t need another football transition, Nigeria needs a football renaissance. Institutions must become stronger than individuals; merit must become stronger than ties; transparency must become stronger than secrecy and Nigerian football must finally become bigger than the politics that have held it hostage for too long.
REFORM O
RECYCLING? This is the question facing Nigeria, and this time we must give the right answer.
