Former executive committee member of the Federation of International Football Federation, (FIFA) and Confederation of Africa Football (CAF), Dr Amos Adamu has revealed how Nigeria was able to escape FIFA’s ban from all international football activities.

Reacting to the lifting of the suspension clamped on Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, by (FIFA) following the court order that restrained the NFF executive committee and congress from commanding and controlling Nigeria’s football, he said the directive given to him by the Sports Minister and Chairman National Sports Commission (NSC), Dr Tammy Danagogo to lead a 5-man delegation to Brazil to meet FIFA president, Sepp Blatter was what saved Nigeria from the ban.

He said contrary to speculations that FIFA refused to receive the delegation in Brazil to resolve the vexed issue, they were personally received by the FIFA president himself.

“I certainly know that FIFA will not tolerate such a thing and they were heading to a situation where they will ban us. So when I was told by the Honourable Minister to lead the delegation to FIFA and explain what happened to them, I said we must first get the court order vacated and once we did that, we will not have problem with the world football body.

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“I led the delegation of about five people to FIFA and when we got there, I went to CAF president, Issa Hayatou with the delegation to explain our mission to him. Even before we got there, I had called him to say he should intervene on our behalf so that FIFA will not ban us out-rightly. And when we reached there and explained everything to him, he said, ‘FIFA headquarter is just about 20 minutes drive from here’. He immediately directed his personal assistant to call FIFA office to tell the head of National Association that Nigeria’s delegation was there to see the president and when Blatter heard that Dr Adamu was there, he said he will come to meet us in the hotel.

“He left his office and met us in our hotel. We explained everything to him that it was not the issue of government interference but a member of the football family that went to court. He simply told me that I know the right thing to do and asked me to go and get them to do the right thing after which it will be over. I told him we will do the right thing but that he should give us time to do that and that was how they gave us two more days. I assured him that within those two days, we will resolve all the issues and get the court order vacated.

“When we came back and reported to the Honourable Minister, I invited Baribote to come and told him to vacate the court order. I pleaded with him that we needed his cooperation to resolve the issue and I am happy that he complied with us and went to Jos to tell the court that he will not continue with the case and later got the order vacated.

“Before then I was in touch with FIFA, assuring them that we will not exceed the deadline and when the order was vacated I told them to send it to FIFA immediately before 11 pm so that they can receive it before 12 midnight that day. I called FIFA to tell them that the man had vacated the order and that the board had been reinstated. They said no problem as they promised to get back to us by Friday. So, I am happy that the issue is now over but I hear some people saying that FIFA refused to listen to us. If FIFA refused to listen to us, how did they manage to give us two more days to get court order vacated?”

Source: http://musbizublog.com/?p=16833