Nigeria’s problems with FIFA: The Nigerian Football Federation gets banned from all competitions
FIFA is very strict when it comes to enforcing its rules and regulations; it is particularly harsh when it comes to governmental interference. They believe that a country’s football federation should be free to work without
meddling from governments. This has not gone down too well in the past and the most recent victim of this rule is the Nigerian Football Federation and the national football team of Nigeria. They may be allowed to compete soon but they will have to prove that
their government is kept away from their affairs.
The world’s biggest governing body of the world’s most popular sport rules over football with an iron fist. FIFA oversees all international competition and friendly matches and makes sure that nothing illegal or against its
rules takes place. The numerous rules that the huge football governing body has in place are all there for a reason - they ensure the smooth running of the game on every level. One of the rules of FIFA though that a lot of nations are in constant violation
of is the no government interference rule.
This often violated rule of FIFA’s says that the government or sports ministry shall not interfere with the working of the nation’s football federation. The football federation of a country shall be a neutral and independent
body free from political influence and interference. Well a lot of the time this issue can get muddled up because a government of a country is supposed to work in the interest of its people and if they interfere in sports it is because they think the team’s
let their people down somehow. So when that happens, investigations start and fines are handed out.
But the interesting part about this is when a sports team or the federation behind the team is involved in corruption or an illegal practice that forces the government to act because it is usually government money that is
being stolen and lost. At that point a government has to step in and punish the offenders. This often clashes with FIFA’s rule and problems arise. This happened to the Nigerian team early this year when the government of Nigeria started an investigation into
corruption by the Nigerian Football Federation. FIFA immediately stepped in and suspended the team from all international competition. This is a little bit hard to understand because in a case of corruption the Nigerian government and police force have to
pursue the case even if it means getting banned by FIFA.
More trouble lay ahead for Nigeria because the football team was formally banned from all international competition recently by FIFA. The problem arose when members of the Nigerian football Federation were taken to court
by a rival football federation in the country. Once the legal system of Nigeria got involved in the whole affair, the Nigerian football team and its federation were banned from all international completion. It was fine when the two football federations were
fighting amongst each other but once a democratic institution of the country got involved, it quickly turned into a case for FIFA to look into and investigate.
We will have to wait and see if Nigeria will have the ban overturned or not in the next few weeks. The problem seems to be that if the government of Nigeria continues to interfere in the affairs of football in the country,
the ban will remain. It is an issue that has two valid sides to it and both seem correct to a certain extent in their own way. FIFA wants the governing bodies of its member countries to be free from coercion and influence by the government and the governments
of countries want to do well by their own people. It looks as if this issue will continue to be problematic for both FIFA and all of its member countries where the governments get overzealous at times and want to ensure the proper working of their teams.
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