Chairman of the National Sports Commission(NSC),Shehu Dikko has stated that the Nigeria Football Federation(NFF) never received or managed the $1.19 million in FIFA funds for the controversial Birnin-Kebbi mini-stadium, asserting that global football’s governing body managed the project directly.
Dikko,made the clarification in response to mounting allegations of financial misappropriation against the NFF. The claims emerged after a 2023 photo from FIFA’s social media, showing an unfinished structure, sparked public outrage over how the $1.2 million grant was spent.
“No one collected the money,” Dikko stated during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“I was the first person to deliver a FIFA Goal project in Nigeria, so I understand how this thing works,” the NSC chairman said.
“FIFA manages its projects directly. The job of NFF is to provide the land and say, ‘this is what we want’. At the end of the day, it is FIFA that will appoint and pay the contractor to deliver what they had agreed on.”
He explained that under the FIFA Forward Programme, the process is hands-on for FIFA. “The job of NFF is to provide the land and say, ‘this is what we want’. At the end of the day, it is FIFA that will appoint and pay the contractor directly.”
He attributed the project’s perceived lack of value to Nigeria’s volatile exchange rate, noting that the project was first approved in 2015 when the dollar’s value was significantly lower. Delays in land acquisition pushed the contract signing to 2020.
Dikko reaffirmed that FIFA remains responsible for the project’s execution, insisting that the funds were handled transparently and according to global standards.
Furthermore, Dikko clarified that the widely-circulated photo only depicted the first phase of the project, which he insists was completed as agreed upon after a public tender process.
The House of Representatives Committee on Sports has launched an investigation into the NFF’s management of FIFA and CAF grants, with the Kebbi project as a central point of inquiry.
