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A former board member of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has cautioned that President Bola Tinubu’s newly ordered overhaul of the country’s football administration risks becoming a cosmetic exercise unless it dismantles the structures not just the personnel blamed for years of decline.
Fan Ndubuoke, a former president of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria and one-time special adviser to the sports ministry, welcomed Tinubu’s directive following the NFF leadership’s resignation, calling it a rare and overdue opportunity. But he argued the reform must not simply swap out officials while leaving the same networks and power structures intact.
Ndubuoke said football’s much-cited autonomy from government, protected under FIFA statutes, should not be used as cover for avoiding scrutiny of alleged corruption, financial opacity or mismanagement. He argued that where public funds are involved, Nigerians are entitled to answers, and that fear of FIFA sanctions should not block legitimate accountability efforts.
He called for any audit to go beyond NFF headquarters in Abuja and examine the federation’s legal structure, its electoral system, concentration of power in the president’s office, finances, sponsorship deals, grassroots development, coaching, refereeing and the treatment of former internationals. He also renewed his criticism of what he calls “Chairman Supremacy” — the outsized influence of individual federation presidents, urging a shift toward professional, institutional management with clear oversight.
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Among his sharpest proposals: an independent ethics body to investigate long-standing allegations that money and connections, rather than merit, sometimes influence national-team selection. He also questioned why Nigerian referees are rarely represented at top international levels, calling it a symptom of deeper administrative failures.
Ndubuoke’s central concern is over who leads the reform itself.
He objected to placing the process solely under the National Sports Commission, arguing the agency is itself part of the system that produced the current crisis. Instead, he proposed a new, independent National Football Reform and Reconstruction Commission drawing on experts in law, finance, sports science, broadcasting and football, alongside credible former internationals, with a public, evidence-based final report.
He warned against rushing into fresh NFF elections before structural issues are resolved, arguing that changing faces without changing systems would only guarantee a repeat of past failures. “Nigeria does not need another football transition,” he said, “Nigeria needs a football rebirth.”
