Over aged disqualification: FCT threatens to pull out of NSSF competitions …Demands MIR test result, unreserved apology

The Federal Capital Territory Administration, through its Sports department, has ordered with immediate effect, the organisers of the All Nigerian Secondary Schools Football competition, to show scientific means and proof as reason for the disqualification of entire students presented by it to this year’s final competition, which technically knocked the FCT out of the competition.

The Chairman of the FCT Football Association, Alhaji Musa Saeed Talle, in the wake of the inhuman treatment, has asked the organisers of the Annual All Nigerian Secondary Schools Football Competition popularly known as “NNPC/Shell Cup,” the Nigeria Secondary Schools Federation (NSSF), to tender an unreserved apology to the residents and government of the Federal Capital Territory for the embarrassment it caused her representatives in the just concluded Zonal qualifiers of the 2017 edition of the NNPC/Shell Football Cup Competition held in Katsina.

Speaking during a visit to monthly Congress of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), FCT Chapter, Alhaji Talle said that the entire football stakeholders in Abuja have remained bitter over how their representatives in that competition were treated and embarrassed in the zonal eliminations of the Championship.

He said: “For the records, it would interest you to know that the representative of FCT in the tournament always emerged from the Annual FCT Principals Cup Competition organised by the FCT Football Association in collaboration with the FCT Secondary Education Board.

“During the Principal’s Cup, we ensure that schools who took part are students who are within the stipulated age, and are bonafide students of the schools they are representing. In this year’s edition, we presented the FOSLA Academy Karshi, Abuja, the Champions of our last edition of the Principals Cup. The school was grouped alongside other eight schools in Katsina for the Zonal eliminations where one qualifier will emerge. Unfortunately to us, only ten players scaled through the assumed screening processes adopted by the organisers, which basically is through facial appearances and body built. It would not have bothered us since that remains the only accepted means the organisers of the competition could adopt in this digital age, but the dropping of all the players from the same school that played up to the finals in the 2016 edition of the COPA Coca-Cola and Etisalat U-15 Football competitions organised by the same Federation was more embarrassing “.

Continuing, the FCT FA boss, who holds the title of Daniyan Karshi, said: “It is laughable that earlier in the year, the NSSF invited one of the players from the school, Chidera Prosper Ojukwu, who emerged as the highest goal scorer in both the 2016 COPA Coca-Cola and Etisalat U-15 tournaments, scoring 32 goals in all, to the press conference to usher in the 2017 edition of the COPA Coca-Cola. The boy was invited as an “Ambassador” of the tournament. Only for the organisers to disqualify same boy from the Shell Cup which was meant for U-17 players barely two months after”.

Alhaji Talle said despite all the formal protest made by the FCT delegation including the presentation of the players school reports from JSS 1, International passports, and even MRI reports to authenticate the actual ages of the boys, no response was received from NSSF, “making us to conclude that it was an orchestrated plan to frustrate the FCT team out of the tournament”.

He insisted that if the NSSF failed to apologise to the people of FCT over the embarrassment, they (the FCT) would have no option than to pull out of all NSSF organised football tournaments and formally send protest letters to all relevant authorities that the NSSF is affiliated, until such a time that they would have devised a globally acceptable means of determining the actual ages of participants in their tournament.

Also, the FCT FA boss further revealed that the Association has concluded plans to begin the first edition of the FCT Women Football League. This, he said, is aimed at giving the girl child in FCT the opportunity to exhibit her talent and a sense of belonging in the round leather game. He said that the League would begin on July 15 with teams drawn from all the six area Councils of FCT.

He commended the Sports writers in FCT for their support and appealed for their continued support in publicising the efforts of the FA to take football development in the territory to the next level.