How Ministry of Sports, Balele donate money for Olympic Eagles trip to Tanzania

A top official of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has revealed that the body is broke and took the intervention of Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare and Chairman Task Force for National teams, Kurfi Balele before the U23 national team could jet out of Nigeria for the qualifiers against Tanzania.

The source told InsideGlassHouse that the NFF President Ibrahim Gusau has a gentleman’s agreement with his predecessor Amaju Pinnick not to make public the huge debt profile of the football federation he inherited.

“The NFF are in the red to the tune of nearly three Billion Naira.” He told InsideGlassHouse.

The top official added: “Pinnick left a mountain of debts for the new administration to service.

“Had we qualified for the World Cup, these debts would have been wiped out without any stress, but as we did not, our finances are in a total mess.

“Pinnick has reached an understanding with Gusau that the debt profile of the NFF not be exposed and that he will find a way how this will all be sorted.

“But the question is if he could not clear the debts when he was in office, how can he do so now that he is no longer there?”

The travel agent that has arranged the federation’s travel since Pinnick’s first term has refused to advance more credit lines and instead insisted on cash payments.

That was how the Sports Ministry and Chairman of the Task Force for the U17, U20 and U23s, Aminu Kurfi, had to put together over 30 Million Naira before the U23 team could make the trip to Tanzania last month.

The NFF also owe several Abuja hotels close to a Billion Naira for national team training camps and other official engagements.

Nigeria beat Tanzania 3-1 on aggregate to qualify for the last round of CAF U23 African Nations Cup. The 2015 U23 African champions will face Guinea in the last round.