Danagogo: There will be peace in the sports fraternity

Tamuno Danagogo, Nigeria’s minister of sports, has assured soccer fans that the crisis bedevilling the administration of the game in the country will soon be over.

With the game now being run in courts as well as the Nigeria Football Federation’s Glass House, the minister is optimistic that Nigerian football will soon take the country’s national motto, since 1978, of “Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress” as its own, too.

“Be rest assured unity will come soon; we are working for peace to reign in Nigeria football,” he told Sl10.ng.

“There will be peace in the sports fraternity. Unifying people sometimes takes a while, but I know that by the grace of God, very soon all the storm you see here and there will be over and we shall have peace.”

The minister also shared his view on the significance of the NFF-organised bonding with partners and potential partners, which took place at the Eko Hotel on Friday night.

“It is like a water-shed in the history of football administration in Nigeria football. It is like starting the new vision. Our vision in government is to see that the private sector key into our transformation agenda and what’s happening today is to start that,” he said.

“That’s why we are very happy that the new Nigeria Football Federation board is appreciating and keying into what is our actual vision of transformation of sports in this country. I’m optimistic that it’s a welcome development and I want the support of everyone for this new move to come to fruition.

“One of the key charges we gave them is that there must be accountability and there must be transparency whether it’s government or private money. Now, one of the very positive moves the NFF have made is that they’ve appointed Price Water House Cooper to probe their account which they will submit to us (government) and to the public.

“They’ve employed Financial Derivatives to be their financial consultant and they’ve also appointed Ben & Co to also be their consultant in fine tuning their vision.”

The minister was quite impressed with the Amaju Pinnick-led NFF, convener of the event.

“This new NFF board are showing that they ready to be transparent. They’ve brought in third parties and auditing firms to audit their account,” he said.

“I think that’s the way to start. That should give confidence to the private sector and the corporate giants. To be sincere that’s what we need. If that continues then the private sector will be more willing to play an active role.”

Pinnick, on his part, gave insight into some of his board’s plan to effect the needed change in the game.

“There’s a transition from the old board to the new board, the old board were successful in terms of winning laurels. They qualified Nigeria for all events and people said they were very magical, but ours is to apply science which means we want to see result as it is coming, we want to see applicable results in anything we are doing,” Pinnick said.

“If you want to run football professionally you must try as much as possible to isolate government from funding it. However, the government is very key to development because they will create an enabling environment for football to thrive.

“The only thing we have to brag is our credibility, transparency and our hope to attain the best. We are very excited because we know that corporate Nigeria can help us to drive our dream. They will be involved in everything that we are doing.

“Take for example, if we have a tournament we shall make sure that the company sponsoring such tournament will be involved from the beginning to the end. The marketing and sponsorship committee will make sure that the company’s brand is kept intact.

“We shall also give detailed report to the National Sports Commission, the sponsors, auditors and to our consultants.”