By Samuel Malik
The Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, has been scored zero regarding the disclosure of information on its activities, including how it spends money received annually from world football governing body, FIFA.
In its latest report released on Thursday, Transparency International, TI, the global anti-corruption watchdog, said hat majority of the 209 FIFA member countries performed woefully, despite the low standard used in grading them.
The report, Transparency International Football Governance League Table, looked for information on the websites of football associations regarding their activities and finances.
As a result, four criteria – financial record, organisational statutes of charter, annual activities, and code of conduct or ethics – were used, with a point given for each item.
Surprisingly, only fourteen countries scored four points. These are Canada, Denmark, England, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland and Sweden.
Of the 209 FAs, 87 scored zero, representing 42 per cent.
Out of those who scored zero, 41 per cent (36) are members of the Confederation of African Football, CAF, and this represents 69 per cent of the 52 countries ranked.
According to TI, Egypt, which is the only African country to score three out of four points, updated its website with three of the four documents it requested.
Botswana and South Africa scored two points each, as their football associations’ websites contained information on their charter and code of conducts.
Thirteen African FAs, representing 25 per cent, scored one point each for having their statutes on their websites.
A look at the Nigeria Football Federation website confirms Transparency International’s report.
There are no financial records, statutes, annual reports or code of conduct or ethics.
When contacted on phone, the NFF spokesperson, Demola Olajire, asked our reporter to send him a text, as he was busy attending to an important letter. He promised to reply the text.
But as at the time of filing this report, he was yet to reply to the text asking why a big football association like the NFF does not have this information on its website.