By Korombo Bangura
The world football governing body, FIFA, has always preached a policy of zero-tolerance for what they call third party interference in football interference and over the years. Its president, Sepp Blatter and his executive has bullied nations worldwide with threats of ban and other forms of punishment. The world of football is observing the situation in Nigeria and how once more FIFA’s hypocrisy is at play when similar and even worse things happened in other countries but FIFA, instead of condemning them, opted to be silent or endorse third party interference. Sierra Leone a case in point.
It is a policy that has been very difficult to uphold especially in continents like Africa where governments have to be the primary contributors to financing international competitions and providing almost all infrastructure used by the football association's members.
In 2011, the Keynote Speaker at the African Executive Conference in Accra, Ghana, Dr Kofi Amoah, a Nations' Cup organising committee chairman for the tournament in Ghana, suggested in no uncertain terms that the policy is not workable and applicable in the strictness FIFA insists it is implemented in Africa because of the over-dependence on governments to support the beautiful game. It was thereafter that FIFA compromised the policy and allowed government collaboration but not interference or dictatorship.
FIFA has now been caught up in what many in Sierra Leone, and apparently also in Nigeria, consider as a hypocritical stance once more, when it insisted that a court in Nigeria, expected to be totally independent and beyond government's dictates or any other influence, that issued an interlocutory injunction, must withdraw the ruling or the country faces a ban.
The President of the Nigerian FA was accused of corruption by a former Premier League Board Chairman and the matter was heard by a Judge under the Laws of Nigeria, and the Judge ruled that the entire Nigerian Football federation be dismissed and an Acting General Secretary be appointed to organise a congress and an election.
The legality of the action or the sincerity of the ruling is not the concern here rather the fact that whereas in Nigeria FIFA is frowning on third party interference by a legal system under Nigerian Laws, on two separate occasions in Sierra Leone FIFA kept silent when excessive abuse and interference by a third party existed. The first was in the Anti Corruption matter against Alimu Bah, a former General Secretary of Sierra Leone Football Association, and in the second instance it was the interference by the sports minister Paul Kamara into the elections using political backing to endorse and impose Isha Johansen as President through extremely dubious means which also included racism and outright electoral fraud.
In the case of Bah, he was charged for misuse of donor funds and convicted by the High Court, and in recent weeks the Court of Appeal, presided over by Justice Nicholas Browne-Marke, ruled against FIFA’s policy, noting that the funds from FIFA and CAF were subject to the laws of the land because under the Anti-Corruption Commission Act of Sierra Leone, SLFA was a public body, and as such the court had jurisdiction to judge such matters and the commission to investigate such bodies and offences.
Whilst the merits of the case are not an issue here, it is important though to note that in Nigeria FIFA considered the court decision as third party interference and has suspended the country. In Sierra Leone FIFA and CAF have been noticeably quiet. They never commented on the Alimu Bah trial, let alone to threaten Sierra Leone with a ban.
Prior to Nigeria, in Ghana and Cameroun FIFA condemned the investigation of FA officials and their associations even though they fall under the same category as Alimu Bah because they were being investigated by the country’s anti-corruption bodies.
The conclusion is that for FIFA, what is intolerable in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroun, it was perfectly normal in Sierra Leone and that includes overt and excessive use of third party interference in the FA Elections in 2012-13.
In the said elections the Minister of Sports was very vocal in his and the government's support to one particular candidate, Isha Johansen. On several occasions the minister threatened to dissolve the FA and disqualify all other candidates. He even threatened further that if the other candidates, especially Rodney Michael and Mohamed Kallon were qualified he would use his power as Chairman of the Sports Council of Sierra Leone Act of 1964, to nullify the election.
The FIFA Representative Primo Covaro was aware of all these illegalities and the CAF Representative who also serves as an Appeals Officer of the Court of Arbitration for Sports, Arbega were informed of the political and racial issues in the elections. But because of what now appears as favouring their preferred candidate, and probably the candidate of the government, FIFA and CAF tolerated the excesses of the government, and in particular the minister, Paul Kamara. In fact, FIFA cleverly succumbed to the minister’s decision to dissolve the FA and appoint a Normalisation Committee which by all indications was compromised by the powers that be in terms of its composition and subsequent decisions.
This is the same institutionalised corruption that the Dutch FA President, Michael Van Praag referred to in condemning the FIFA president Sepp Blatter, and probably the reason why many European FA representatives called FIFA a "Mafioso" as it is now visible that a Blatter mafia has probably been created with vested interests to retain corrupt officials who would endorse Blatter’s visionless policies and vote blindly in re-electing him at the next elections in 2015.
However in Nigeria, it appears the members of congress, who represent the football family in Nigeria and have the ultimate authority in their country, have endorsed the decision of the courts to sack the FA Executive Committee and for a fresh electoral process to commence.
They have held their congress and taken the appropriate decision to progress ignoring FIFA’s threat, but for how long? Time will tell.
There is no disputing the complexity and probably the inappropriate method of getting rid of the FA Executive in Nigeria, which may be a dangerous precedent. What is more disheartening, especially the case study of what has happened in Sierra Leone over the last few years, is the hypocrisy of FIFA...or should we say Blatter’s Mafia!
(C) Politico 11/07/14
