Former Super Eagles coach Samson Siasia has lamented about the lackadaisical treatment he got from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) during the period when FIFA was investigating how for match-fixing, Soccernet.ng reports.
In 2019, World football governing body FIFA slammed Siasia with a life ban from all football related activities. However, after an appeal the punishment was reduced to five years.
Siasia, who served as Super Eagles coach on multiple occasions and registered over 50 caps for Nigeria was accused of bribery and alleged involvement in match-fixing, two of the biggest offences in the game.
Since then, the 56-year-old has been out of the game, albeit he has always claimed innocent of the accusations leveled against him.
In a recent interview with Athlist, Siasia, whose ban ends in a few months, lamented the poor attitude he got from the NFF before the ban. The former Lokeren man accused the NFF of failing to help him when FIFA were conducting investigating the issue. He also revealed that he had to borrow money to foot his lawyers’ charges when he wanted to appeal the case.
“Nigeria abandoned me at that time of need, that’s my own take on how this thing played out,” Siasia told Athlist.
“It’s an allegation, they said bribery. What is bribery? Is it not when money changes hands? was there any proof of that? There was none.
“I spoke with someone that was trying to hire me as a coach I’m Australia. I didn’t know the guy was a match-fixer, but FIFA knew this guy. Why would they allow him to be around any FIFA tournament?
“So when they found out through emails, our correspondence about how this guy would take me to Australia. I played in Australia, so I felt it would be nice to go back there.
“We talked about how much salaries, transfers, bonuses, sign-on fees, and that was all.
“When FIFA was looking for me, I didn’t even know. I am not affiliated to FIFA, their affiliation is with the NFF. So they went to the NFF and told them not to let me know that they were investigating me. But if they didn’t tell me, how was I supposed to defend myself?
“Then they sent me a letter, but it went to my spam. It was two days before the ban that I found out that FIFA was looking for me. Then we started to see how we could communicate with them to see how I could have a hearing. But they said the time had elapsed and I should go to CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sports).
“For me to do that was like two days. To find a sports lawyer in this country is not easy. You can hardly find one. So we struggled and managed. I can tell you that the boy we took to write the appeal brief for me to get that hearing is suing me up till today.
“It has been dragging because he said I have to pay €300,000 even though our initial agreement was in euros. I’m still struggling with that one just because Nigerians couldn’t stand up on their feet and check what was going on.”
Siasia’s ban will end by August, and he will be expected to return to coaching immediately. However, Because of his ban, it may be difficult for him to get a job outside Africa.