I was presented an unusual gift by a friend the other day. I have gone through the document he gave me a few times since then. It has been an education. I do not know how long it will take but I shall try to serialise my thoughts on the exchange of correspondences between the NFF and FIFA on the issue of the statutes of the NFF. I did not see the first letter the NFF wrote to FIFA. There was only FIFA’s response to the NFF letter to provide an insight into why the NFF needed FIFA’s approval for a document that represents the domestic workings of an independent member of FIFA whose activities are in line with association football.

Genesis

FIFA received a letter from the NFF on August 26, 2009. It responded in 9 pages on November 2, 2009. FIFA wrote: ‘due to the crucial importance of the NFF statutes as the basic legal document of the NFF, we are of the opinion that some of the provisions of the NFF Statutes should – in our estimation – still be clarified or revised again on account of the FIFA Standard Statutes.’

That means that the document as it is until amended by the congress of the NFF does not reflect best FIFA practise practice and standards. In evaluating the content of the proposed statutes sent by the NFF, FIFA made some profound recommendations that Nigerians interested in the affairs of the NFF must read.

Let me start small, with FIFA’s observation on NFF’s article 21 on State football associations, Local football councils and Leagues, etc.

Hear FIFA: ‘The NFF Statutes should regulate and describe the basic organisation of the NFF. The NFF Statutes can not interfere in the organisation of other entities, including its members’.

‘Art. 10 par.4 of the NFF Statutes interferes in the organisation of the members of the NFF which should organise themselves without any external entity including the NFF’.

The above is very profound. It has nothing ambiguous about it. It is very interesting and revealing. State Football associations, local football councils, players associations, the professional football league, and all other members that constitute the NFF, are independent organisations with their own structures and workings that must not be tampered with by any external bodies including the NFF. Indeed in another response (not for discussion here today) they should not be considered subordinate to the NFF. The only proviso is that the members must dedicate their activities to association football (how ever that translates). That is why FIFA would not get up any day and start asking any of its affiliates questions about their activities until and unless there is a dispute, a complaint, or an incident that requires FIFA’s intervention, interpretation, arbitration or response, but never interference!

Several questions immediately come to mind. The best way to illustrate these is by citing examples.

The travail of Ray Nnaji

This past week, I heard on radio that Ray Nnaji, a barrister and member of an association affiliated to the Premier League has been suspended by the NFF. He had taken the Premier League Board to court over the legality of its existence amongst other issues. The court throws out the case for lack of jurisdiction. NFF Secretary-general steps in and announces Ray Nnaji’s indefinite suspension from all football activities in Nigeria for taking one of its affiliate members, the Premier League, to court! How does that translate in the light of FIFA’s clear definition of the relationship between the NFF and its members? Ray did not take the NFF to court. He took a corporate body, registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission as a business organisation that can sue and be sued over its legal standing to court. Then the NFF steps in and suspends an NPL member! I am dazed!

Abuse of the power of incumbency!

Let me read a portion from the proposed NFF Statutes sent to FIFA. Article 21 on State Football Associations, paragraph 3 (m) reads: Each State Football Association shall have its elective congress in November/December succeeding the elective congress of the Federation within the senior FIFA World Cup year!

In short, the NFF is fixing the time of the elections into State Football Associations. What has the NFF got to do with time, composition, registration, or any other such issues related to one of its members? The State FAs are independent bodies related to the NFF by affiliation. According to FIFA the NFF’s only business with its members is to ensure that their legal composition guarantees that they can take decisions independently of any external entity and that they dedicate their activities to association football. Period! How did the NFF come to the point of fixing dates for election for State football associations, and inserted that in their own statutes? Why the State FA’s only? Why them at all? Why not fix the dates for election for all other members? Can it be because the State FAs constitute the largest single block of members affiliated to the NFF and can make the difference when election time comes? Or is it because their votes are crucially important and will fit into a pre-conceived agenda? Or is it because they are more important than the others? The questions that arise are endless. Why did other members of the NFF congress not raise the issue before approving the amendment sent to FIFA? Did they not see or understand the clause? Or was it so cleverly woven they failed to appreciate its significance?

Let us break down the facts.

The present Executive Committee began its tenure on August 27, 2006. The electorate that elected the Sani Lulu led board was made of 102 or so delegates. Before the congress of August 27, 2006, all the members of the electorate had to emerge first from their local councils, state associations, clubs, Leagues, zonal or national congresses where they secured the mandate of their organisations to become delegates. Their tenure in their various associations is for a general mandatory 4-year period. That means that their tenures would end variously before the tenure of the Executive Committee they elected. That means also that in a life of any NFF Executive Committee, except if prematurely terminated, there can only be one electorate to elect one Executive Committee.

The next Executive Committee elections will hold at the end of the tenure of the present board in August 2010. It is simple logic and common sense that the outgoing electorate cannot elect the incoming Executive Committee without securing new mandates from the various bodies they represent. The last electorate cannot elect two consecutive and different Executive Committees. In order to be able to so an illegality must first be committed by extending the tenure of the members that constitute the congress. The NFF does not have the power to do that. The tenure of the various association boards and their elected delegates to the NFF congress can only be extended by their congresses. To use them for any election after the 2006 board elections will be illegal. That’s what fixing the date of November/December for the State elections, after the conclusion of the Federation Executive Committee election in \August does. It gives birth to an illegality. To conduct the Federation’s Executive Committee elections ahead of State Associations’ elections smells pungently of some covert conspiracy or secret agenda! You do not start an election from the top. It has never happened in Nigerian football. Why change the rules of the game now? Why insert this new clause that alters the entire landscape of the elections and can have profound influence on them? Why insert them in the NFF Statutes, and in such clever disguise that it escaped even the attention of FIFA and that of many members of the NFF congress that I discussed it with this past week? Can CAF or FIFA fix the date of elections into the board of the NFF and insert that in its statutes? No way!

It is simply unthinkable. If what the NFF proposes to do is not interference then show me what is. It is the most blatant and arrogant abuse of the power of incumbency. The board may be attempting to set the stage for their return to power by all means. How can the body of persons that elected the present board be the body that will elect the next board? It is preposterous to think that the NFF would determine how, where, when State football associations hold their elections?

The present NFF board is being clever. If the word ‘succeeding’ in the clause is changed to ‘preceding’ it will become more logical and more acceptable even though the NFF still would be interfering where they should not! The elections into the local councils and state associations must precede the elections into the executive committee. That’s how it has always been. That’s how logic dictates it should be. That’s how it will be if we start looking at the small prints in the NFF statutes.