NFF: FIFA never stopped Nigeria’s $1.5m grant

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has disclosed that football’s world ruling body, FIFA, never stopped the payment of $1.5 million grant to Nigeria.
NFF Director of Communication, Ademola Olajire, said in a statement that the report in the media that FIFA stopped Nigeria’s grant after seeing ‘traces of corruption’ and issued a so-called final warning to the NFF on financial management was misleading.
He said: “Nothing could be farther from the truth. We have never received any information from FIFA talking about ‘traces of corruption’ in our submission with regards to the audit query of last year.
“The only information FIFA has provided to the NFF since the audit query is that they are keen to look at performance improvement areas in which FIFA and NFF might jointly work on going forward.
“Amazingly, this same matter affects so many Member Associations in Africa, as a result of the new financial and governance reforms in FIFA. It is only in Nigeria that the issue has been sensationalised beyond normal.
“In any event, the query matter is being handled and we hope to sort out all matters within the shortest possible time so that we can put all these behind us”.