NFF Cancels Midweek Matches
With directive from the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, the Nigeria Premier League, NPL has postponed three midweek matches that fall on 10-28 January due to national team assignments.
It was gathered from the NPL that coaches of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia and Flying Eagles, John Obuh, who have invited players from various Premier League clubs need some players for their respective competitions.
The postponement, according to the football body will enable the national teams coaches to have the full complement of the players in camp for their preparations.
NPL acting executive secretary, Tunji Babalola maintained that, “this is imperative in other to give room for our league players to be actively involved in the build-up of the national teams and as its stand, all week 11 midweek matches slated for this Wednesday, (tomorrow) have been postponed likewise other subsequent midweek games,†he said.
The Flying Eagles are preparing for the African Youth Championship, AYC, which is slated for Libya in March, while the Super Eagles are also getting set to feature in an international invitational tournament tagged Obama Cup in the US.
Meanwhile, the crisis rocking Nigerian football is far from being over, as the re-run election of the NPL chairmanship position has turned into a court case.
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos yesterday ordered a stop to plans by the NFF and NPL from conducting fresh elections for the chairmanship and chairman of chairmen positions of the league body.
Presiding over the case, Justice Okechukwu Okeke, ordered that status quo be maintained in the chairmanship of the Premier League.
Justice Okeke’s pronouncement is an exparte ruling that allows the defendants to file an objection within 14 days from the ruling.
The pronouncement also leaves Davidson Owumi as NPL chairman in spite of his sack as Premier League chief by the NFF General Assembly on 20 December, 2010 in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
President of the National Association of Nigerian Footballers, NANF, Harrison Jalla, who is the plaintiff, told SuperSport.com that an illegal body cannot quash the election of another “whether in part or full†that was duly elected into office.
“The NFF or NFA board is an illegal body considering the ruling of the court last year restraining them from holding elections. But they went ahead to flout the laws of the country and now they nullify the election of the chairman of a body that was duly elected in a free and fair election,†Jalla said.
Jalla, head of one of the factions of a players’ union in Nigeria, added that he has approached the Federal High Court to re-open the case challenging the legality of Aminu Maigari and co parading themselves as executive committee members of the Nigerian FA.
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