N25 Million NFF’s Largess Tears Nasarawa United Football Club Apart

By Rabiu Omaku, Lafia

The twenty five million naira given to the management of Nasarawa United Football club, by the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, through the League Management Committee, LMC, for the Nigeria Premier Football League 2014/2015 seasons is already tearing the club apart following mixed reactions by stakeholders managing the affairs of the club.

The State Football Association chairman, Mohammed Alkali has confirmed that clubs usually  were given grants from sponsorship deals, disclosing that he has it on good authority that LMC earmarked N40m for each club participating in the 2014/2015 NPFL season.

Speaking over the crisis surrounding the NFF’s bounty, Alkali maintained that it is the club that can give details of what they received and how the fund was spent. He opined that each club was given N20m at the commencement of the league and additional N5m as the teams returned from the brief break to inaugurate new crop of leaders.

He identified the improvement yielded in the recent season are due to measures taken by the Nigeria Football Federation which ensured professionalism by referees and other officials in applying the rules of the game.

But the chairman of the club, Barrister Issac Danladi denied the claim that the club received a total of N25m from the NFF, through the League Management Company for the 2014/2015, Nigeria Premier Football League season.

Barrister Danladi who described the claim as damaging, explained however that the LMC earmarked about N20m grants from sponsorship deals to club through Insurance provision of kits and other souvenirs that gulp about 80 percent of total sums meant for each club.

“Although the government has continue to support and fund the club but the current economic meltdown pushed them to look inward to complement its effort, He maintained that the team has recovered from its shaky start to the season and would be back in contention with an improved motivation, through constant payment of salaries”.

Danladi listed some of the nagging challenges facing the club to include number of cases involving the club at the sports arbitration panel and its former players and technical crew members.

The LMC chairman Shehu Dikko in a telephone interview conceded that clubs were accorded grants from sponsorship deals, but declined to give vivid details of the amount given out to each club and other details as raised by Barrister Issac who is the chairman of Club Owners Association.

Danmusa Mohammed, the state chairman of Sport Writer’s Association of Nigeria in his reaction described the entire episode as embarrassing and uncalled for, he assured that SWAN will lead the crusade to impress on stakeholders.