Nigeria have been given until Friday to sort out a legal quagmire
involving the country's football federation (NFF) in what FIFA described
as a "last opportunity to avoid a lengthy suspension".
FIFA said
that if a federal court order, which has declared recent NFF elections
to be null and void, is not withdrawn by then, Nigeria will be suspended
from international football at least until the end of May.
This
in turn would mean that African champions Nigeria, who reached the
last-16 stage of this year's World Cup, would not be able to defend
their title at the Nations Cup in Morocco in January and February.
The
Jos High Court ruled last Thursday that September’s NFF vote, which
elected Amaju Pinnick as president, be declared null and void, throwing
the country’s football authorities back into crisis.
"We can
confirm that FIFA has been informed by the NFF about the order granted
by the Federal High Court nullifying the NFF elections... and that some
persons claiming to have been legitimately elected previously went to
occupy the offices of the NFF," said FIFA in a statement.
"We also
have been informed that security forces prevented the NFF president
from travelling to Namibia where he was supposed to represent the NFF at
the final match of the African Women’s Championship."
FIFA said
that "in order to give Nigerian football a last opportunity to avoid a
lengthy suspension", it would allow them until Friday to prove that the
court order had been withdrawn and "that the board elected on Sept. 30
is able to carry out its activities without any hindrance".
No comments:
Post a Comment