TheCable

Solomon Dalung, minister of youth and sports development, says the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) lied over the claim of chartering a Delta Airlines jet to convey the Dream Team to Brazil from Atlanta.

The team arrived Brazil a few hours to their first game in the competition as a result of logistic challenges.

But speaking in an interview with Channels TV, Dalung described the “theory of the Dream Team being stranded” as a hoax. The minister said the federation lied to have paid Delta Airlines to fly the U-23 team, whereas the airline did not collect a dime.

“The theory of the chartered flight was another attempt to rip the country off‎. All these are unsubstantiated allegations,” he said.

“As I stand today, we have a receipt from an agent that NFF claimed to have chartered a flight from Atlanta to Manaus on the 4th of August.

“Yet, we had Delta airline which I have confirmed through the person I sent to Delta office that the flight from Atlanta to Manaus was their contribution to help the team get to Brazil.

“That they also airlifted them from Nigeria to Atlanta. It means that there was this existing partnership between Nigeria Football Federation and Delta Airlines.”

NFF responds

But Ademola Olajire, NFF spokesman, seems not to be on the same page with the minster.

“Is Delta Airlines NFF partner?” he asked in response to inquiry by TheCable.

The federation later issued a statement to deny any partnership with the airline.

“The NFF board and management are taken aback by these insinuations,” read the statement signed by Suleiman Yahaya-Kwande, chairman of NFF media and publicity.

“The NFF president has been telling us of meeting between him and the minister on how to avoid the kind of situation we got into in the USA in the future.

“So, the minister’s latest statements are a bombshell. We are not openly challenging the minister, but we must set the records straight.

“To start, we do not have any partnership with Delta Airlines, a company that we owe much gratitude for the way it came to the rescue to airlift our team to Brazil.

“The names of NFF’s partners and sponsors are known to the public.”

The statement also debunked the claim of Dalung that it presented a receipt on the cost of the flight.

“The NFF is not aware of any receipt that was presented to the minister for airlifting the U23 team from Atlanta to Manaus,” the statement read.

“I am aware that the minister himself requested for the phone number of our FIFA Match Agent (Mr. Jairo Pachon, who has been working with the NFF since 2009) when everybody became desperate about how the team would go to Brazil.

“The NFF president gave him the phone number, and the minister himself asked Mr. Pachon to go ahead and charter an aircraft, and Pachon reverted that the amount would be $174,000, as against the $300,000 that was bandied earlier.

“However, the money did not reflect in the airline company’s bank account within the deadline it gave to us, so the service was cancelled.

“We insist that Mr. Pachon acted in the best interest of Nigeria.”