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Samson Siasia: Nigeria coach loses appeal to overturn five-year FIFA ban in US court
By Wale Mustapha
Former Head coach of Nigeria’s men national team, Samson Siasia has lost his appeal suit to overturn his five-year ban from football activities by world soccer governing body, FIFA for match fixing related offenses in a US Court.
The case that was heard in the U.S on Thursday and presided over at the the Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled that Samson Siasia did not show why a trial court in New York had jurisdiction over his case.
In 2019, FIFA had imposed a lifetime ban on the former Super Eagles’ striker for violating the federation’s code of ethics over a bribery scheme for Australian matches.
The ban have since prevented Siasia from using his U.S. Soccer Federation coaching license.
The Olympic Silver winning coach and an Atlanta resident sued FIFA in August 2021 with a prayer that the evidence was “grossly insufficient” and that the ban violated his due process rights under the U.S. Constitution.
But the appeals court said Siasia did not show that FIFA was “essentially at home” in New York, or agreed to be sued there because it banned his use of what Siasia called his “New York” coaching license from its alleged New York “agent,” U.S. Soccer.
Siasia was a member of golden generation of Super Eagles who won the 1994 Nations Cup and also took the world by storm at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in USA.
He has also coached the country’s U20 national team to win silver at the 2005 FIFA U20 World Cup in Netherlands.
