By Abdulgafar Oladimeji.
Prior to the commencement of the 20th edition of the much awaited National Sports festival, NSF, tagged Edo 2020, Nigeria Rugby Football Federation , NRB is engulfed in internal crisis , our correspondent reports.
The meeting of the federation slated for Saturday 27t March to deliberate on technical matters hinging on NSF rugby event ended in outburst.
Our checks revealed that the meeting of the board which was earlier scheduled to be held last Friday could not be held due to unexplained hitches.
A member of the board, who spoke under the condition of anonymity , confirmed the unhealthy situation in the board.
The impeccable source said “ there is disharmony in our board, we were summoned to hold a zoom meeting on Friday , at the instance of the director prgrammes, ministry of youths and sports,(name witheld)the meeting did not hold because the notice served was too short, we adjourned to the next day been Saturday.
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“on Saturday by 12pm as agreed the previous day, our president Kelechi Mbagu and other executive members joined the zoom link, it was very embarrassing the director in the ministry of sports , who summoned the meeting did not join the meeting, rather he sent in an excuse, that he was assigned to attend to another issue by the minister of youths and sports Sunday Dare, we all got angry and stormed out of the meeting.
The source further said “Nigerians need to know that something funny is happening with rugby, something worst may happen at the festival, the whole crisis is all about the crisis surrounding the position of the technical director of the board.”
It would be recalled that prior to the cancellation of the fiesta in March 2020, it was reported that the banal trade in fake/black medals that is commonly attributed to major sporting events would not be immune at the forth coming 2020 edition of Nigeria’s largest sports fiesta, National Sports Festival, (NSF)investigations had revealed.
Checks had revealed that plots have thickened to unleash the usual strategy that is applied to invoke medals in favor of highest bidders.
medal black market is the Nigeria Rugby Football Federation(NRFF).
Our correspondent gathered that deliberations are ongoing amongst concerned stakeholders, whose states have qualified to compete in rugby, with the subtle threat that they may have to opt out of the festival.
One of the officials who in 2020 spoke under the condition of anonymity simply said “we may not go to Edo with our rugby team, no need to spend our money to take the team to Edo, only to be robbed of our chances.”
“before our going to Edo, someone has already decided who takes the medals, why bother, why waste our time and resources, what is going on will continue to destroy our sports and no body seem to bother about the mess that is evident everywhere.” our source decried.
Efforts then to get the President Nigeria Rugby Football Federation (NRFF)Kelechi Mbagwu to respond to the allegations raised also failed, calls put across to his mobile phone ( number withheld)were barred.
