Etoroma hails Amaju Pinnick for his foresight •Says FG, Dalung should learn from CAF elections News

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Etoroma hails Amaju Pinnick for his foresight •Says FG, Dalung should learn from CAF elections

By Augustine Kalu on March 31, 2017

Former member of Delta State Sports Commission, Hon. Ejiro Etoroma, says Nigeria should be grateful to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Amaju Pinnick, for his foresight in knowing where the pendulum will swing in the recently held Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) elections.

He said for Amaju’s foresight and doggedness Nigeria would have continued to be in the wilderness as far as CAF football politics is concerned.

Hon. Etoroma explained that it took Amaju’s foresight for him to have known that there was no way the group he belongs to in the CAF election will lose and as a result was in the forefront of the campaign for change of guard as far as the leadership of the continental football governing body is concerned.

“I want to first and foremost state that the government should remove politics from sports. Sports is so important to us in this country for the government to be mixing politic into it,” Etoroma declared.

“Sports is the only thing that unites us and nothing more. It is only when our national teams are playing that everybody in this country forgets his biases. So we should be careful about how we handle sports issues in this country before it back fires.

“I want to specifically call on the Sports and Youth Development Minister Solomon Dalung to examine issues critically before making statements. I am saying this because most of the time his pronouncements don’t synchronize with the reality. A typical example is the just concluded CAF elections where he came out to say that Amaju should vote for Isa Hayatou because that is the position of the government.

“Assuming Amaju adhered to that directive, what would have become the faith of the country with the way things turned out at the end of the elections? That is why I said that government should not be mixing politics with sports,” Etoroma explained.

“In all these, I thing that we should be grateful to Amaju for his foresight in seeing in advance where the pendulum was going to swing and at the same time aligned himself with the forces of change having carefully analysed the situation.

“Now his foresight and accurate calculation has brought Nigeria into the main stream of African football politics and we can sit with progressives in African football.

“Of course if you ask average Nigerian before the elections, except perhaps those who were benefiting from Hayatou administration they will tell you that they were tired of Hayatou.

“So, the clamour for change in CAF was so overwhelming, so huge that you can see and feel it,” Etoroma observed.

Speaking on the role of FIFA President in the CAF elections, the Delta State born sports administrator explained that Gianni Infantino had every right to support anybody he wished to support. He said that the bottom line is that Africa desired change and they got it by electing a younger person in the Madagascan Football Federation President, Ahmad Ahmad.

“I don’t want to see what happened at the CAF elections from the prism of those who thought that the change in CAF leadership wouldn’t have been possible without Infantino.

“In any case, the FIFA President, Gianni Infantino has every right to support or campaign for whoever he wants to support. But in all these, the truth of the matter is Africa desired a change and they got it in the election of Ahmad Ahmad.

“Globally, the wind of change is blowing and Africa has joined the progressives as it were. So, as far as I am concerned, Infantino did not do anything wrong in showing or supporting whoever he chose to support,” Etoroma explained.

•Photo shows NFF President Amaju Pinnick.

Source Daily Sports

Posted March 31, 2017