Football stakeholders reject choice of Pinnick as NFF Normalization Committee Chairman

Following Thursday’s resignation of NFF President Ibrahim Gusau and all his executive committee members, football stakeholders in the country have spoken strongly against the purported plan to appoint former NFF President Amaju Melvin Pinnick as Chairman of the football house Normalization Committee to be set up by the National Sports Commission (NSC)

The stakeholders namely; Abubakar Mukhtar, Nnaemeka Onyeogaziri and Tunde Babajide argued that appointing him to such position will have no positive effect on the country’s football nor bring about the desired reorganization required for the country’s football to move forward.

According to them, Ibrahim Gusau’s regime was an extension of Pinnick’s administration whose tenure started the misfortune that befell the country’s football.

“We want to advise anybody in the NSC pushing for Pinnick to occupy such a position to jettision it now because if he succeeds with such unpopular plan, history will not forgive him as one of those who compounded our football problems.

“There’s no denying the fact that the misfortune of our football started from the regime of Pinnick and for 13 years now, we have not won anything in football despite the abundant talents we have in this country.

The stakeholders challenged those pushing Pinnick for the job to give Nigerians his scorecard which must include what he achieved when he was in charge of the NFF.

They described as disheartening that after 13 years Nigeria won it’s last AFCON in South Africa in 2013, no meaningful impact have been made by the various national teams at both the continental and world level.

” It’s very disheartening that since our last AFCON triumph in 2013, we have not made any meaningful impact in football. The Super Eagles failed to qualify for the World Cup back- to- back and the Super Falcons not only failed by the way side at the just concluded WAFCON in Morocco but failed to pick one of the World Cup tickets.

“It’s equally sad to discover that fellow African countries whom we usually beat by large goal margins now come here to beat us which is a very big shame”, they chorused..

The stakeholders appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to step in and save Nigerians football from destruction by those who do not mean well for the country.