The news was a bomb.\u00a0 Samson Siasia, banned by FIFA for life and to pay a fine of $50,000 Dollars!\u00a0 Who did he kill? That was the first question that immediately came to my mind. You can\u2019t earn such a punishment without committing a capital offence.\u00a0\u00a0That sentence is akin to taking Samson\u2019s life because football is his life, as it is for some of us too.\u00a0\u00a0Why would FIFA destroy the reputation of a former player and celebrated coach, his livelihood and his future for the \u2018sin\u2019 of an intention <\/b>to commit an offence, and not for the offence itself? Yet, even the intent is still shrouded in secrecy almost two weeks after the verdict.\u00a0\u00a0FIFA\u2019s judgment took the world by surprise.\u00a0 No one seemed to know that the Nigerian gaffer was involved in any matter least of all one of match-fixing and that the case had been ongoing for a long time.\u00a0\u00a0Even Samson initially shouted to the world, in shocked reaction, that he did not know about the matter and was never invited to defend himself.\u00a0 But that was before an email correspondence surfaced on social media clearly showing that FIFA invited him, did not receive a response, decided to try him in absentia and inflicted the maximum punishment.<\/p>\n
To me, the entire matter\u00a0no get head<\/i><\/b>.\u00a0 \u00a0The facts do not tally with the alleged offence or the gravity of the conviction.\u00a0 Up till now, FIFA has not stated what happened and connected the dots to Samson Siasia. Samson has not been accused of fixing any match, and there has not been any evidence to show that he took part in any match-fixing.\u00a0 According to FIFA\u2019s letter, Samson did not respond to two email messages sent to him to defend himself.\u00a0\u00a0FIFA obviously took this very badly.\u00a0 It meant either disrespect or disregard for it.\u00a0 In that state of mind, and with a new broom sweeping the organisation that was trying to clean up its image, it was important it made a big statement that there\u2019s a new and different Sheriff in town.<\/p>\n
Samson Siasia, unfortunately, became an easy pawn at this time.\u00a0 To start with, he is from a part of the world designed for hapless victims.\u00a0 Were it not so, why would any institution hand down a death sentence (which this is) and then ask the victim to pay an additional fine? Is the fine to commute the sentence or what? Or is it to make sure that the convicted remains convicted forever?\u00a0 I have followed the many scandals of FIFA in the past few years. The allegation against Samson Siasia pales in insignificance compared to the least of the many horrendous crimes committed by powerful men inside the organization that stole FIFA dry and almost destroyed its integrity.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, what happened to them?\u00a0\u00a0Even Blatter and his co-travellers were slapped on the wrist compared to Samson\u2019s sin and sentence.\u00a0\u00a0On Siasia\u2019s \u2018crime\u2019, up till now, over one week after the public pronouncement of a ban, no word has come from FIFA satisfactorily answering all the questions being asked about the case.\u00a0 \u00a0Even their affiliate member, the Nigeria Football Federation, headed by a man who is clearly very close to the top hierarchy of FIFA, did not show he knew anything about the matter before the sentence.\u00a0\u00a0I am still trying to wrap my head around the whole matter. Why would FIFA, with all its power, descend with its full weight and wrath on an ordinary Nigerian on a matter that is reeking of half-truths from a sinking man without an iota of integrity?\u00a0 It also reeks of racial bias and treatment.\u00a0\u00a0In football, as other global issues, the architecture is not in favour of the Black person to succeed.\u00a0 Even on the football field, despite all the years of global outcry against it, racism still thrives, yet \u2018death sentences\u2019 are not passed onto known \u2018other\u2019 perpetrators.\u00a0 The case of Samson Siasia is one that defies easy understanding.\u00a0\u00a0Here is a son in emotional trauma.\u00a0 His mother is still with unknown persons demanding impossible ransom for kidnapping her.\u00a0\u00a0Then a body that should embody compassion turns its back to its ordinary member because he commits a small error and dismembers him with a sledgehammer.\u00a0 I cannot still believe it.<\/p>\n
Samson Siasia?<\/p>\n
Nobody even knew he was embroiled in a case that had been on for almost a decade.\u00a0 Samson, in his initial reaction, also said he was not aware of the matter, and that he was never invited to defend himself.\u00a0\u00a0An email from FIFA debunked his initial claim but still does not answer how a person without anything to hide would disregard a summons for such a serious matter.\u00a0\u00a0Samson would still have to explain his action that obviously infuriated a FIFA struggling furtively to build a new image of incorruptibility after the spate of scandals that rocked the organization to its foundation during the Sepp Blatter era.\u00a0\u00a0That may explain why FIFA, under Giovanni, is doling out harsh sentences like popcorn these days to Africans that can\u2019t fight back.\u00a0 \u00a0To confirm the haplessness of Africa, even the Confederation of African Football in its entirely has been taken over by FIFA in an unprecedented move that many consider recolonization by a new means.\u00a0 \u00a0If that is FIFA\u2019s thinking, it had better go and do a rethink because Nigeria shall surely come fighting back.\u00a0\u00a0I am interested in this match-fixing scandal story involving Nigeria. Mr Wilson raj Perumal, the man at the head of this match-fixing syndicate, in his well-publicized deposition with FIFA, mentioned Nigeria as one of the possible beneficiaries of his match-fixing.\u00a0 He did not say he directly fixed Nigeria\u2019s match, but that he could have influenced another match involving teams in the same group as Nigeria during the last qualification matches for the 2010 World Cup.\u00a0 His story was so shallow when I first read it some years ago, that I took as the ranting of a man that wanted to take down the whole of football establishment with him after been caught in his failing racket.\u00a0 Now, he has succeeded in selling exploits of half-truths and incredulous stories as a match-fixer, and making good money and getting global attention. He has no reputation to protect.\u00a0 I read some of his narratives and wrote them off as gibberish. Football is not that easy to be that rigged, even though attempts at fixing games have been long in practice.\u00a0\u00a0His story about Nigeria and the 2010 World Cup has\u00a0K-leg<\/i><\/b>.\u00a0\u00a0He cannot take any credit for Nigeria\u2019s qualification because he tried to influence another match played elsewhere between two other teams in Nigeria\u2019s group, one of whom needed to lose for Nigeria to qualify. Balderdash. Believe that and you will believe anything.\u00a0\u00a0The Federal Government of Nigeria took qualification so seriously that it set up a Presidential Task Force that worked hard with the team to earn qualification for the championship.\u00a0\u00a0It was not the handiwork of a trickster pretending to be able to fix matches and destroying an institution and the lives of innocent victims in the process.\u00a0\u00a0No one must diminish Nigeria\u2019s hard-earned victory in qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.\u00a0 Incidentally, Samson was not even anywhere near that team.\u00a0 FIFA should be careful with how it handles the Perumal stories. The man has no integrity and giving them much credibility will destroy the game of football.\u00a0 FIFA was being too harsh in this Samson Siasia matter.\u00a0 If all they have against Samson are his failure to respond to their email letter and to defend himself against the frivolous stories told by a man that has no ounce of credibility, FIFA is standing on a very weak ground on this matter.\u00a0\u00a0The good news is that the NFF has joined Samson Siasia to take the case, without fail, to the Court of Sports Arbitration to appeal FIFA\u2019s draconian decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The news was a bomb.\u00a0 Samson Siasia, banned by FIFA for life and to pay a fine of $50,000 Dollars!\u00a0 Who did he kill? That was the first question that immediately came to my mind. You can\u2019t earn such a punishment without committing a capital offence.\u00a0\u00a0That sentence is akin to taking Samson\u2019s life because football…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-football"],"gutentor_comment":0,"yoast_head":"\n