Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The National Sports Commission is locked in a major internal conflict over who should head the proposed Normalisation Committee that will take over the running of Nigerian football, following the mass resignation of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) board on Thursday, August 27, 2026.
According to a Vanguard report, NSC Chairman Mallam Shehu Dikko and Director-General Bukola Olopade have both agreed to force the NFF board to step aside. However, they are now at loggerheads over the choice of Normalisation Committee Chairman. Sources say Dikko prefers Musa Ahmadu, while Olopade is pushing for former NFF President Amaju Pinnick to lead the committee. The disagreement has stalled the process and created panic among football stakeholders, with one source lamenting: "We've seen this movie before. When administrators fight, players suffer, sponsors run, and FIFA starts asking questions".
The proposed Normalisation Committee is expected to take charge of the NFF for three months, with a mandate to conduct fresh elections for a new executive board. This development effectively cancels the originally scheduled NFF elections set for September 27, 2026, in Lafia, Nasarawa State.
The leadership crisis at the NFF reached a boiling point on Thursday when President Ibrahim Gusau and other board members resigned under mounting pressure. NFF General Secretary Dr. Mohammed Sanusi confirmed both his resignation and that of the NFF president, stating that the resignations were genuine.
The mass resignation follows growing criticism over the federation's poor handling of Nigerian football, including the Super Eagles' failure to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the Super Falcons' historic failure to secure qualification for the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup. The Super Falcons, who had qualified for every Women's World Cup since 1991, lost 1-0 to Cameroon in the WAFCON quarter-finals and then fell 2-1 to South Africa in the playoff, marking a historic low for Nigerian women's football.
The crisis has been further intensified by scrutiny from anti-graft agencies over the NFF's handling of a N17 billion Federal Government intervention fund approved by President Bola Tinubu in 2024. Top NFF officials have reportedly been questioned by the Department of State Services (DSS) over the utilisation of the funds. The EFCC and ICPC have also moved into the federation's offices in Abuja to check how the N17 billion released for the prosecution of the 2023 AFCON, 2026 World Cup qualifiers, and 2025 AFCON was spent.
Former Super Eagles captain John Obi Mikel, in a recent podcast, had called for the NFF board's exit, warning that Nigeria risked missing a third consecutive World Cup after failing to qualify for the 2022 and 2026 editions. The resignation of the NFF board now clears the way for a Normalisation Committee to oversee reforms and fresh elections, but the disagreement within the National Sports Commission over who should lead the committee threatens to delay the process and further destabilise Nigerian football.
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