The Guild of Sports Editors says President Tinubu’s intervention could not have come sooner, and it’s determined not to let the moment go to waste.
In a statement from an emergency meeting, Guild president Tony Ubani painted a bleak picture of what led here: back-to-back failures by the Super Eagles to qualify for the World Cup, Nigeria’s absence from the FIFA U-17 and U-20 World Cups, the fading fortunes of Nigerian clubs in the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup, and — for the first time ever — the Super Falcons missing out on the Women’s World Cup. “The emotions and joy of Nigerians have repeatedly been shattered,” the statement said. The Guild insisted the shake-up must mark genuine reform, not just a change of faces, and urged the National Sports Commission to staff the proposed Normalisation Committee with people of proven integrity and competence rather than “friends, girlfriends, political associates and cronies.” Those who created the mess, it said, must not be recycled into the solution.
The Guild called for the committee to operate with a clear mandate, defined membership criteria and a fixed timetable, so it doesn’t harden into another permanent structure with no exit date. Its to-do list, the Guild said, should include a comprehensive review of Nigerian football’s governance and statutes, the creation of a transparent electoral system, and stronger accountability mechanisms overall. It also pressed for a resolution to the long-simmering legal dispute over the federation’s very identity — NFF versus Nigeria Football Association — arguing that “there is everything in a name” and that Nigerian football’s legal foundation needs to be settled for any reform to last.
On finances, the Guild demanded a full forensic audit of the NFF’s accounts, contracts, assets and activities, and was blunt that stepping down changes nothing: “resignation is not immunity.” Anyone who “dipped his hands into the cookie jar,” it said, must face the consequences under the law. The Guild also urged the government to keep FIFA and CAF in the loop throughout the process, while cautioning that fear of sanctions must never again be used as an excuse to tolerate incompetence or impunity — football autonomy, it said, is not freedom from accountability.
Vowing to watch every stage of the selection process, the Guild said this moment must not be squandered on another round of the same faces under a different name. “Nigeria has suffered enough,” it said. “Nigerian football must now be rebuilt.”
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