More scandal for Nigeria with W.Cup bribe probe

Nigerian football sank deeper into crisis Monday after FIFA opened an investigation into whether one of its officials from the West African giant offered to sell his vote in the World Cup 2018 bidding race.

The probe was the latest scandal to hit the sport in Nigeria, where the president banned the national team following a woeful performance in this year’s World Cup, a decision later reversed under pressure from FIFA.

Corruption allegations have trailed former executives from the national federation since then, and a separate controversy has erupted over what FIFA calls the Nigerian government’s interference in the sport.

“Nigerian football is endemically corrupt because you cannot divorce it from the general society, where there are several serious moral issues,” said Osasu Obayiuwana, a former BBC sports reporter and associate editor of New African magazine.

Pervasive corruption has long held back Nigeria, where deep poverty persists and the government has been unable to provide basic services such as sufficient electricity despite being one of the world’s largest oil producers.

It is also a country that is mad about football, though the sport is widely viewed here as plagued by corruption as well. Some say it has served as another example of Africa’s most populous nation failing to live up to its potential.

In the latest embarrassment, world football’s governing body launched an investigation into bribery allegations after a report by a British newspaper over the weekend.

The Sunday Times alleged it covertly filmed Oceania Football Conference president Reynald Temarii and Nigerian FIFA official Amos Adamu soliciting money in return for their World Cup 2018 votes.

It alleged that Adamu, a member of FIFA’s executive committee, asked for 800,000 dollars (570,000 euros) to endorse one of the bid candidates.

It filmed him meeting with undercover journalists posing as lobbyists for a United States business consortium, in which he apparently offered a “guarantee” to vote for the US bid in the 2018 event in return for cash.

The money requested by Adamu was intended to pay for four artificial football pitches in Nigeria, but he said it should be paid to him personally.

Adamu, a controversial figure who wields major influence over Nigerian football, is also president of the West African Football Union. He has not responded to phone calls since the allegations emerged.

Musa Amadu, the acting secretary general of the Nigeria Football Federation, has refused to comment in detail, saying “we just have to wait for the outcome of this investigation before we can issue a statement on the matter.”

Nigeria’s Super Eagles flamed out in the first round in this year’s World Cup in South Africa. The government responded by banning the team and ordering an investigation into alleged corruption.

The ban was reversed, but FIFA later suspended Nigeria over what it called government interference in the sport in a separate dispute. It has temporarily lifted the suspension until October 26.

That allowed Nigeria to play a 2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Guinea this month — which it lost.

“It has come to reflect the state of the country itself,” Opeyemi Agbaje, an economist who has also written about football and Nigerian society, said of the sport in the country.

“While I can’t comment on the truth of the allegations against him, I think we all know that Nigerian football is extremely corrupt.”

He said “we have the culture of the big man, the unaccountable leader.”

“People feel entitled to be paid for every decision or action they have to take,” said Agbaje.