RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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The president of the Nigeria Football Federation has stepped down amid corruption allegations and a string of disappointing results by the country’s national teams.
Ibrahim Musa Gusau’s announcement on Thursday came a month before the federation is due to hold its next general election.
Several members of the federation’s board also stepped down from their positions, local media reported.
“I decided to resign from my position as the president of NFF,” Gusau told journalists in Abuja, adding that he had “advised” other members of the board to “also resign”.
Local media reported that the Nigeria Football Federation is under investigation by Nigeria’s secret police, the Department of State Services, over the alleged misuse of 17 billion naira (about $12.7m) it received from the government in 2024 to clear a backlog of payments owed to national team players and officials.
After Gusau’s resignation, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s office said that he had ordered a “comprehensive reform” of the country’s football administration to correct the “structural deficits within the system”.
“The reform must respond to a longstanding need to strengthen governance, administration, stakeholder representation, development pathways, domestic competitions, and accountability across Nigerian football,” Tinubu said in a statement issued by his media adviser, Bayo Onanuga.
One of Africa’s leading football nations, Nigeria’s governing body has long faced allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
National team players and coaches have repeatedly protested publicly over unpaid allowances.
The latest controversy followed the Super Falcons’ failure to qualify for the 2027 Women’s World Cup.
The 10-time Women’s Africa Cup of Nations winners crashed out in the quarterfinals of this year’s tournament before losing 2-1 to South Africa in a World Cup playoff.
The defeat means that Nigeria will miss the global tournament for the first time since it began in 1991.
The men’s national team, the Super Eagles, also failed to qualify for the last two World Cup tournaments.
Despite resigning, Gusau defended his record and blamed the country’s economic hardship and foreign exchange volatility for the organisation’s financial difficulties.
He also announced a partnership with Adidas that will provide Nigeria with $4.5 million in annual cash payments.
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