Our role in Odegbami’s failed bid, by Pinnick
October 29, 2015 at 1:42 am
BY JUDE OPARA
Abuja  – President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick has refuted claims by former international, Chief Segun Odegbami that his failure to register for the forthcoming election for the FIFA presidency was due to sabotage from home.

Odegbami who, despite getting the endorsement of the NFF ahead of former Abia State governor, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu on Tuesday claimed that the NFF did not give him all the support because their endorsement came late. He also accused his rival, Orji Kalu as well as former executive member of FIFA, Dr. Amos Adamu of scuttling his journey to Zurich.
But addressing journalists after an emergency committee meeting late on Tuesday, Pinnick said the NFF after getting the final government endorsement of Odegbami last Thursday forwarded same to him because he was the person that substantially complied with the laid down requirements needed for anybody to be presented as a candidate for the election slated to take place in February, 2016.
“The federation met a couple of months ago and gave some conditions for anybody wishing to contest to meet, including getting endorsement from local federation; proof of eligibility as specified by the FIFA Electoral Code; endorsement from government nomination and we thought he had other nominations because he is a very popular person not just in Africa but beyond. I did my best as president of NFF. I was calling him every one hour, I don’t think we did badly as a federation.
“Ordinarily when you are going for a contest like this, there are 209 federations and you needed only five endorsements you should have gotten it.
“And talking about the so-called sabotage, I don’t want to delve into such a sensitive area, I don’t think it is true, nobody could have arm twisted me. To me it is unfortunate that we lost out but we should leave it like that, I will say we have learnt our lessons.”
Many analysts have expressed regrets that the former national team captain failed to fly the country’s flag at the FIFA elections even after getting the endorsement of the NFF before the deadline last Monday.

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cc: mukina2