Chinwendu Obienyi
The President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Amaju Pinnick, has explained his reason for reportedly dropping his ambition to run for the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) Presidency.
Pinnick pulled out of the race after throwing his weight behind South African billionaire, Patrice Motsepe.
Speaking during the sign-on partnership with GAC Motors in Lagos yesterday, Pinnick, noted that his reason was down to the development of football in the African continent.
He said, “It is about the future of the great game and that is why I decided to throw my weight behind Patrice Motsepe and I would say it was not a mistake. When you see someone with superior qualities, then you throw your support and allow them to thrive.
The FIFA council is equally very important and Nigeria is the biggest country in the continent, having about 16 per cent of the continent’s population which means that Nigeria is supposed to be in the council. When i get there by God’s grace, Nigeria will have a representative in the council”.
According to him, “FIFA have good intentions for CAF as they want to build stadia but they need an enabling environment, integrity, decorum, support and so i know there would be strong reforms when Patrice gets elected and with whatever they are doing, we as a body and country want to discover more Onuachus, Chukwuezes and other talented footballers that are everywhere in the continent. So we need an enabling environment and support to bring them out, which is what we want to do at CAF.
On the partnership with GAC Motors, Pinnick said, the partnership is coming at the right time particularly in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the social unrest.
“I want to thank GAC Motors for this contract/partnership and it will work. Even though it is a 3-year partnership, we think it will linger on for a very long time and as long as they remain in Nigeria, they will continue to have partnership with the football federation”, he said.
Also commenting on the partnership, the Chairman, Choice International Group (CIG), Motors, Chief Diana Chen, said, the partnership is coming at the right time especially in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She added that the partnership is a reminder that this would bring the much desired level of international performance of the Super Eagles.
“We hope Nigerian football will become the next big thing internationally. This is the beginning of good things between the two organizations and will bring confidence too in the nation’s economy being one of the biggest automobile industries and in the last five years we have continued to support sports.
“So sponsoring football is part of our passion to focus on developing sports in our own little way”, she said.