Amaju Pinnick has revealed that the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) never got the $3.5 million said to have been budgeted for the prosecution of the World Cup qualifying matches against Ghana in March.
The immediate past president of NFF disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Channels Television in Qatar where he has been following the competition.
“Nigeria is going through a phase and if I tell you that phase is not affecting every fabric of the society, I will tell you is not true,” the FIFA Executive Council member said.
“We are going through a very negative phase in terms of the economy, not just Nigeria, most African countries, in terms of economy, in terms of security; there are a lot of challenges.
“Football cannot just thrive in isolation, there must be a foundation. There were a lot of issues, so people just look at it, why? I say it today, when Ghana played against Nigeria, in that doubleheader, my colleague told me the government appropriated $3.5 million for those two games.
“In Nigeria, I will say it with all due respect to everybody concerned, we are saying we did not receive a dime from the government, because at that point we didn’t consider it as being very critical, what we considered critical at that point was interfacing with the players.”
The Black Stars of Ghana got the better of Nigeria, playing 1-1 in Abuja after a goalless draw in Kumasi, to book a place in Qatar.
But Pinnick insisted that the NFF did everything to ensure that the 1994 African champions qualified for the World Cup, maintaining that what happened in the double-header was beyond their control.