Former head coach of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia, has hit out at the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, for their lackadaisical attitude during the period when FIFA was investigating him for match-fixing.
Siasia was found guilty of bribery and alleged involvement
in match-fixing.
The world football governing body hit Siasia with a life ban
from all football-related activities in 2019.
But upon appeal, the punishment was reduced to five years.
In a recent interview with Athlist, the 56-year-old whose
ban ends in a few months, accused the NFF of failing to help him during the
FIFA investigations.
Siasia said: “Nigeria abandoned me at that time of need,
that’s my own take on how this thing played out.
“It’s an allegation, they said bribery. What is bribery? Is
it not when money changes hands? Was there any proof of that? There was none.
“I spoke with someone that was trying to hire me as a coach
in Australia. I didn’t know the guy was a match-fixer, but FIFA knew this guy.
Why would they allow him to be around any FIFA tournament?
“So when they found out through emails, our correspondence
about how this guy would take me to Australia. I played in Australia, so I felt
it would be nice to go back there.
“We talked about how much salaries, transfers, bonuses,
sign-on fees, and that was all.
“When FIFA was looking for me, I didn’t even know. I am not
affiliated to FIFA, their affiliation is with the NFF. So they went to the NFF
and told them not to let me know that they were investigating me. But if they
didn’t tell me, how was I supposed to defend myself?
“Then they sent me a letter, but it went to my spam. It was
two days before the ban that I found out that FIFA was looking for me.
“Then we started to see how we could communicate with them
to see how I could have a hearing. But they said the time had elapsed and I
should go to CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sports).
“For me to do that was like two days. To find a sports
lawyer in this country is not easy. You can hardly find one. So we struggled
and managed. I can tell you that the boy we took to write the appeal brief for
me to get that hearing is suing me up till today.
“It has been dragging because he said I have to pay €300,000
even though our initial agreement was in euros. I’m still struggling with that
one just because Nigerians couldn’t stand up on their feet and check what was
going on.”
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