TheCable

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has objected to the “mischievous” Twitter posts of Peterside Idah, former Super Eagles goalkeeper and Supersport TV analyst, which suggest that the federation wanted to hijack Katsuya Takasu’s donation to the Dream Team.

Amaju Pinnick, president of NFF, said: “His message was a lie, an atrocious false alarm before an important match.

“I had exchanged correspondence with the honourable minister on the issue of the donation and we agreed that there was need for caution. The minister said to me that he read the donation in the papers and had expressed serious concern.

“I also received a mail from the NFF integrity officer who expressed very serious concern with this kind of donation. I got in touch with the ambassador of Nigeria to Brazil and the honourable minister to say that whatever had to be done should be done after the bronze medal match, to avoid any distractions.

“The NFF may be having financial challenges, but I assure you nobody in the federation is interested in that money.

“If we get the government’s go-ahead to collect the money, no official of the NFF will be involved even in the collection. The money will be received directly by the team.

Pinnick added that the status of Nigeria as a sovereign nation, as well as the integrity of Nigerian football, is bigger than such financial gains.

“If we had rushed to collect that kind of money and hand over to the players, the same people who are condemning the NFF now would have said worse things,” he said.

“There are matters in the football world today that FIFA and the various confederations frown at. We are very much aware of that.”