LMC Press Release An Insolence To The Office Of The Honourable Minister of Sports - Jalla

Chairman, Task Force of Professional Footballers Association of Nigeria (PFAN), Harrison Jalla described the press statement by the League Management Company (LMC) as insolence on the office of the Minister of Sports. 

Jalla, the former Players Union President made this known in a statement made available to BSN Sports.

He said "Who are the promoters of the League management Company (LMC) to challenge the authority of the office of the Hon. Minister of Sports and Youth Development? Who conferred the authority on the LMC to perpetually run the NPFL? Is it the conscripted lame duck NFF Congress? Or same conscripted officials of the NPFL Clubs? Where or which section of the 2010 NFF Statute as ammended gave the LMC authority to run the NPFL after former Sports Minister Hon. Bolaji Abdulahi dissolved an elected NPL Board? 

The office of the Hon. Minister of Sports and Youth Development is the ultimate and supreme authority in Sports in Nigeria including the NFA which is parading itself as NFF, the relevant sections of the NFA ACT 2004 as ammended is clear and unambigous.

The Hon. Minister has the power to even dissolve the NFF Board if need be and the heaven will not fall. Former President Goodluck Jonathan saw all these disaster coming to our Football 12 years ago after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The Former president in good faith advised that Nigeria should pull out of all International Competitions for two years to put its house in order. The enemies of Nigeria Football through massive media campaign tore the former president apart and he withdrew the statement. Who are the promoters of LMC to threaten the Federal government?

Top officials of the LMC and NFF had their properties sealed in 2019 by the ICPC. The ICPC has not reversed the public statement it made on those seizures and no further statement from the ICPC that their actions regarding those seizures were made in error as we speak today those properties are still news item on the ICPC website. These are the same people talking about integrity. Again there is a subsisting Judgment from the Federal High Court in Jos plateau State, the chairman of the LMC (Shehu Dikko) is a convict running away from the long arm of the Law. And furthermore, there is an official report from the EFCC to President Mohammadu Buhari (GCFR) in which top officials of the outgoing NFF Board were indicted for misappropriation of several Billions of Naira and Millions of US Dollars. The only reason for promoters of the LMC to have challenged the authority of the Hon. Minister is that they are still walking the streets as free men. In saner climes where anti-graft agencies do not compromise standards, they would have since been in the cooler. Some of them even have the effontery to shamelessly parade themselves as Presidential Aspirants to the incoming Board of the NFF inspite of all the allegations of fraud hanging on their necks.

What is the Business of Nigeria's Domestic Football with FIFA? The Hon. Minister must continue to exert his authority to consolidate the ongoing reforms. The NPFL died under the watch of LMC, and the LMC itself is not known to the NFF statute. The focus now should be to recover the almost $50m frittered away in last six years. The cheap talk of the LMC is an incorporated entity is balderdash. The IMC under former NFF President Aminu Maigari was only conceptualised as a stop gap measure for elections to be held into the NPL Board. Aminu Maigari is well, alive and still very vibrant he will testify to this fact any day any time. The LMC remains a deliberately contrived contraption to defraud Nigeria Football. The Hon. Minister's directive to the NFF to withdraw the dubious license handed the LMC is sacrosanct.