The Minister of Youths and Sports, Mr. Sunday Dare has said various allegations of corruption against the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) was hurting sports development in the country.
The Minister stated this on Saturday when he met with officials of the NFF. While urging the officials to clean up its acts and address the negative perception around their activities, Dare assured that he would not interfere with ongoing corruption investigation by the EFCC or ICPC.
He stressed that beyond cleaning up its acts the “NFF needs to be more transparent in the way it conducts its affairs.
“The perception is that the NFF is corrupt. The perception is that of unseriousness; this perception is hurting the sport. We need to reset the perception, the charge of corruption and other negative things can be turned around by embracing transparency.
“The executive board (of NFF) should learn to do things differently, the Minister will not interfere with EFCC or ICPC since it is important to allow these organizations follow their own due processes. We must allow them to do their work,” Mr. Dare added.
Speaking also, the NFF President, Mr. Amaju Pinnick and some other board members lamented the ongoing investigation of some of them by anti-graft agencies saying they now “feel unsafe”.
He promised that the NFF will henceforth provide updates to the minister by sending him memos “for every fund received” as proof of the federation's commitment to the prescribed era of transparency
