Fresh crisis looms in NPFL

It will be recalled that following the sack of the past board of the NPL under Chief Rumson Baribote and the crisis his impeachment generated, the Nigeria Football Federation waded into the row by setting up the league management committee to run the current season and return sanity to the league within 12 months.Going by […]

It will be recalled that following the sack of the past board of the NPL under Chief Rumson Baribote and the crisis his impeachment generated, the Nigeria Football Federation waded into the row by setting up the league management committee to run the current season and return sanity to the league within 12 months.
Going by its terms of reference the committee’s tenure is supposed to end latest October when it is expected to organise elections into the board of the Nigeria Premier League. However, recent reports have it that the Irabor led committee has written a letter to the NFF seeking for an extension of its mandate to four years to enable it reposition the league better.
Even as the truth or otherwise of the mandate extension request has not been confirmed, most of the club chairmen and managers are bracing up for a showdown with the committee and the NFF. Those who spoke to Weekly Trust said they are waiting for official communication on the matter before they would know the action to take.
Acting chairman of the club chairmen and managers, Barrister Isaac Danladi of Nasarawa United said as a lawyer he does not act on hearsay and would not like to give credence to what he considers to be mere rumours. He said since there is no formal letter to the clubs to that effect, he will treat it as mere rumour.
He said “First and foremost, I will say like any other person, I am also hearing the rumour but as a lawyer, I don’t work on hearsay. I don’t have to lend credence to hearsay. I cannot take it whole and sinker.
“If it is true, the truth must come out one day. When that happens, we shall know what to do as a body. For now, I wouldn’t want to pre-empt anything”.
On his part, the acting secretary of the club owners and manager, of ABS FC of Ilorin Mr. Alloy Chukwuemeka said he was yet to see a copy of the letter and so would speak much on it.
He said the committee is bound by the terms of reference given to it by the NFF and should not do anything outside it. According to him, the committee is expected to round up its activities between September and October to make way for a new board of the NPL to be constituted.
Chukwuemeka said going by the statues of the league, the committee shouldn’t have stayed for more than three months but they got more than that because of the revolution that was caused by the clubs.
“I am yet to see a copy of the letter but I want to tell you that the committee is bound by the terms of reference given to it by the NFF. I just hope they will not do anything that would undermine the existing peace between us.
“You and I know that due to the revolution that we caused, we had to keep aside the relevant statues to accommodate the committee. By our statues an ad hoc committee is not supposed to last for more than three months. I therefore hope that the committee will not do anything that would cause any further disaffection. I just hope what is making the rounds is not true. However, when we get to the river, we shall cross”.
When contact the Chairman of Kano Pillars, Malam Abba Yola was more vehement as he stated clearly that he would not mind leading the fight against the committee, if it happens that there is any demand for mandate extension by the LMC.
He said the committee was mandated to re-engineer the league within one year, get elections into the board done and then leave honourably and that is what the club owners are expecting from the committee.
“I am just hearing it for the first time but I don’t think NFF will just jump into that and give the LMC an extension of time without consulting the club owners. The whole thing basically is to help the club owners come back and take their rightful positions in terms of the leadership of the league.
“If the NFF extends the tenure of the LMC to four years, that will be an aberration. The NFF gave them one year within which to do all these things. So I don’t see any reason they would want to stay for four years. It doesn’t make sense. I am sure we would resist that kind of attempt by the LMC. We cannot accept that kind of situation where the LMC will come and take lover the running of the league. We own the league as club owners. I want to say without fear of contradiction that I will lead the fight against the LMC. We cannot allow them to continue until the year 2017.
“What do they want to do? The plan is for them to come, reengineer the league within one year, get the elections done and leave and that is what we expect them to do. We are not quarrelling with anybody. I supported the one year because I believe there were good programmes lined up but anything outside the one year will be unacceptable by us”.
The General Secretary of the NFF, Barrister Musa Amadu on his part said it is still speculations because the federation was yet to receive such letter from the league management committee.
He however said the LMC has done well so far and the federation would not hesitate to give it the necessary support to enable it succeed in its assignment.
“The committee has been given its terms of reference and so far, it has kept to the mandate given it. Whatever needs to be done to support the work of the committee would be done by the federation.
“It has to be step by step so the committee should continue to do the work that was assigned to it. For now, I can say the committee is performing in line with its terms of reference”.
A club owner who spoke on condition anonymity said the comment credited to the General Secretary is a diplomatic way of saying the NFF has received the mandate extension request from the LMC and is favourably disposed to it.
“We are waiting for NFF and the LMC. The response from the General Secretary is an indication that NFF is in the picture of what is going on. We cannot fold our hands and watch the federation and its cohorts take the running of the league away from us. We club owners are waiting for them to come out in the open with their nefarious plan”, he said.