SPORTS
AFCON 2019: Dalung, NFF clash over Super Eagles’ budget
The Nigeria
Football Federation (NFF) has dismissed the statement made by former Youth and
Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung, at the weekend that the Federation omitted the
budget for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations from its 2019 programmes sent to the
Ministry.
“There is no truth
to the claim that the NFF omitted the AFCON from its budget.
“The truth is that
major competitions are never part of the regular budgets since, in most cases,
qualification campaigns are still on course while budgets are being prepared
for the following year. Thus, they are always sourced from intervention funds.
“We qualified for
the 2019 AFCON in November 2018, after the 1-1 draw with South Africa in
Johannesburg. That was too late to include in the budget for 2019, which we had
submitted around September/October 2018. So, we knew the grace would be for the
AFCON fund to be sourced from special intervention, and not from the proposal
that had been submitted earlier as regular program.
“For instance, the
2018 FIFA World Cup budget was also sourced from intervention fund. We
qualified for that competition in October 2017 and we could not have included
it in the regular program for the year 2018,” NFF Executive Committee member
and Chairman of the Media and Publicity Committee, Hon. (Dr) Suleiman
Yahaya-Kwande told thenff website.
Kwande, who
actually defended the NFF budget for the year 2019 at the Ministry of Budget
and National Planning, said that the Federation at this time is only interested
in ensuring that the National Teams (male and female) excel at their respective
tournaments in which they are representing Nigeria.
According to him,
NFF would ordinarily not respond to Dalung’s statements, but noted that it is
important to put records straight to avoid misleading the public.
“For the regular
annual budgets, we put together our budget for every competition and send to
the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports, which then puts a covering note and
recommends to the Presidency, from where the document heads to the Finance
Ministry and then onwards to the Budget Office.
“Since this NFF
administration came into office, as was the case for some time before it, the
Federation usually received what is called an ‘envelope’. So, the only way to
prosecute major competitions is to depend on the grace of intervention funds.
“Few weeks after we
qualified for the AFCON 2019, we sent a budget to the Ministry. We sent this
same budget about three times as we were always being told to re-submit.
“Mr. Dalung was
Minister of Sports for three-and-half years and not once did the NFF bypass the
Ministry to submit a budget to the Presidency or the Finance Ministry. Facts
are sacred,” he added.
Kwande also denied
that the NFF wrote any story to curry sympathy as alleged by Dalung.
“We have no time
for those kind of spins. Another deliberate misleading statement by the former
Minister was the allegation that the NFF leadership has been saying that it can
do without government funding. We have never said so; we have only ever stated
that the NFF has attained about 60 per cent self-funding from the analysis of
our 2017 audited accounts that we published, and that we are determined to
drive towards total self-funding which would be a delight to the Government, as
it will free resources for other critical sectors.
“It is however
interesting that Mr. Dalung now considers the NFF as a self–accounting
parastatal, when several times during his tenure he refused to accept such.
“We are not sure
what the intentions of Mr. Dalung are regarding the so-called ‘feelers’ he said
he is having about possible unrest in the Super Eagles’ camp. There is nothing
of such; it is statements such as those being made by Dalung at such
inauspicious times that, but for the absolute discipline and concentration of
the Super Eagles, is capable of truncating harmony in the camp.
“The players are
focused on the noble assignment of doing Nigeria proud and told representatives
of the Nigerian ambassador to Egypt (the representative of His Excellency,
President Muhammadu Buhari in that country) as much when they visited the camp
some days ago.
“The ‘feelers’ we
are getting are all positive, and we are confident the team will do the country
proud at the end of the day,” he said.
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