Peter Obi, the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, has criticised the Nigerian Football Federation for allegedly failing to deliver an Anambra stadium that was supposed to be funded by FIFA.
Obi responded to recent accusations of fund mismanagement in a post on X on Monday, addressing the NFF. According to some reports, NFF allegedly cheated on FIFA money to fund stadium and grassroots football development.
When Obi became governor of Anambra, “officials from the Sports Federation” informed him that the state’s capital had been chosen for a FIFA project.
The former governor claimed that the officials had chosen Akwa as one of “six geographical locations” where FIFA would fund the construction of a stadium of the highest caliber.
They assured us that the project would be carried out through the Federal Ministry of Sports, and we immediately allocated land for that purpose. He claimed that this was the last time we heard about it.
We focused our resources on building mini-stadiums throughout the state to promote grassroots sports, believing that such a significant project was in progress.
We built, among others, the Godwin Achebe Stadium in Onitsha South and the Chuba Ikpeazu Memorial Stadium in Onitsha.
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Obi continued, “The promised FIFA project was unrealized, and his administration held the stadium itself.”
The former presidential candidate expressed disappointment with Nigeria’s youth’s “blatant squandering of opportunities.”
He then stated that “even worse realities” would emerge from a further investigation into the allegations against NFF.
The NFF announced on Friday that external auditors audit every dollar received from FIFA and the CAF.
Source: Channels TV
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