NFA May Lose 50 per cent of Work Force
As restructuring panel frowns at 109 Glass House staff strength
By Tunde Sulaiman
THISDAYSports has authoritatively scooped that a major surgical operation will be carried out at the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) following discovery by the committee set up to re-structure the association that there is currently 109 staff on the FA's pay roll.
The committee, headed by former National Sports Commission (NSC) Director General Mallam Babayo Shehu, met last week in Abuja and learnt that the original goal of former Sports Minister Eng. Mark Aku for a learner and more efficient FA had been jettisoned with the large number of staff still at the Glass House.
The late Aku had after a visit to the London Soho Square offices of the England FA had decided to stream line their Nigerian counterparts to make it more productive and less dependant on government for its survival and consequently appointed a former FA Secretary-General Mr. Patrick Okpomo to help him carry out the exercise.
But with the death of Aku in a plan crash two years ago his plans for the Glass House went with him as his predecessor halted the move for greater efficiency and autonomy for the association.
But last Thursday the Mallam Shehu committee, set up last month by current Sports Minister Col. Musa Mohammed (rtd), learnt that had Aku's plans been allowed to germinate the FA would not have been as bloated as it was now.
In fact THISDAYSports reliably scooped from a member of the committee yesterday that every person they spoke to, including current secretary-General Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi, agreed that the association was over staffed.
"The general consensus was that the FA should not be more than 50-man strong for it to be more efficient. But it was also observed that in order for this to happen the association would have to be some how immune from the influence of its supervising ministry - the Ministry of Sports. If not it would be very difficult for the Secretary-General to rebuff a direct request from Ministry top shots to employ any one," explained the source yesterday.
From what THISDAYSports gathered from the committee member the body was definitely going to advise government to give the Pro League department of the FA full autonomy while it would advocate a situation where the Sports Ministry's influence over the Glass House was reduced to the barest minimum.
"It will be impossible for the FA to be totally independent of the ministry but what we're looking at is a situation where the ministry would only have very minimal influence over FA while the Pro-League department is granted full autonomy but will still be affiliated to the football federation."
We reliably learnt that presently the Pro-League department is virtually independent of the FA and at times has even been able to come to the rescue of the Glass House with the payment of salaries. It is able to come to the aid of its perpetually broke federation from money raised from fines, appeals and registration fees.
The FA currently survives on a monthly stipend of N3 million from the Sports Ministry, which is vastly inadequate for the functions the Glass House has to perform which includes not only paying staff salaries but also the cost of taking part in international competitions like Germany/Egypt 2006 and other FIFA organised competitions.
For instance the FA is said to be shopping for about N28 million in order to be able to prosecute the Eagles next month's World Cup/Nations Cup qualifier against Zimbabwe in Harare.
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