By Andrew Warshaw
July 27 – Gianni Infantino’s working visit to Nigeria this week was somewhat overshadowed by an ongoing domestic spat demanding the resignation of Nigeria Football Federation president Amaju Pinnick.
The protesters, led by former Nigeria international Emeka Ezeogu, besieged the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, to lobby Infantino, his secretary general Fatma Samoura and FIFA executives Mattias Grafstrom and Veron Mosengo-Omba.
At least 10 protesters, including leader Ezeogu, displayed placards outside the hotel declaring ‘Infantino – Nigerian football is in shambles’. It was the second demonstration this year since the Nigeria Sports Marketers Association requested the resignation of Pinnick for ‘incompetence’ during a meeting with the sports minister in April.
Much of the discontent focuses on the Nigerian national team which has plummeted in the FIFA world rankings after failing to qualify for a second consecutive Africa Cup of Nations. Nigeria have also missed out on the Olympics for a second time in a row.
Pinnick had been hoping to use Infantino’s visit to promote his fading status as NFF president despite a court order asking him to leave office.
Reports in Nigeria also pointed an even darker alleged plot, the narrative being Pinnick spearheading a movement to oust Issa Hayatou as head of African football with Infantino’s backing.
This could not be reliably confirmed but it was telling that Hayatou, long-time president of the Confederation of African Football who ran the show at FIFA for several months after Sepp Blatter’s premature exit, did not attend Infantino’s visit, his first to an African nation since he succeeded Blatter.
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