•Refuses to rule out sabotage PROPRIETOR of Babayaro Football Club, which was dealt a whooping 67-0 in one of the two controversial promotion play-offs, Shuaibu Gara-Gombe, has disclosed that a host of respected football personalities were present at the stadium when his side was mercilessly walloped by Police Machine Team in the controversial encounter. In the other encounter, Plateau United Feeders manufactured a 79-0 victory over Akurba FC. The promotion play-offs would have seen winners qualify to play in the lowest tier of Nigeria domestic League, Nigeria Nationwide League Division 3. Gombe, who has already disbanded his club, as well as, threatened to institute a legal action against the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), should they handle the matter with kid gloves or attempt any cover up, said the sad episode took place with a sizeable number of football officials in attendance. “At the venue where my team were mercilessly dealt with those incredible goals, there were match officials, match commissioners, FIFA-badged referees, board members of states football associations and committee members of the NFF, who are in charge of appointing match officials were all there. I know them and have gotten their names. “However, like I said earlier, I do not want to pre-empt the NFF panel, but wait and hear what they will come up with before releasing my findings. And if the football authorities do not do anything, then I will institute criminal proceedings against them in a law court,” he told The Guardian in a interview. Asked if he saw his team’s defeat as a form of sabotage considering his persistence criticism of previous and present boards of the NFF, he said, “I thought of it being a case of sabotage, but I decided to hold on until after the investigation commissioned by the NFF, which will determine to me, who really did what. “It will also confirm to me whether it was a case of someone or some persons trying to sabotage me or link me up with such a dirty incident. That is the reason I went ahead to disband the club without wasting time as a preliminary measure knowing too well that many other things will come out of this incident. “This is really painful to me because I have been a chairman of my state FA, chairman of Gombe United FC, match commissioner and club owner, but I have never seen this kind of thing. At first half, the scoreline stood at 6-0, but rose to the 67 incredible goals in the second half when additional 61 goals were scored. “This boils down to a goal being scored approximately every 40 seconds. I also learnt that when a goal is scored, instead of retrieving the ball from the net, some people were positioned to throw in another ball into the centre circle. At the end of the day, there was no offside, no throw in, no corner kick and no goal kick. This is definitely not a game of football. People must definitely go to jail, so it is time for stakeholders to put heads together and ensure that this is the last time this kind of thing is happening in Nigerian football. On whether he could vouch for the character of those he employed to man the club for him, he said, “before you employ someone, you do some background checks, but experience has shown that all those checks are only valid the day you carried it out because a non-smoker may begin to smoke the following day. “As a person, I formed the club as a production centre for players, as well as, help in the promotion of the game of football. But against my wish and instructions, the officials took the team to go and play in the state league and feature in the play-offs. “I for one did not register the team to play in the nationwide play-offs. It is even curious how the team qualified to play in the state league Division One because without being in Division One, you cannot even participate in the play-offs. As the owner of the club, I cannot remember registering them in Division One, so how did they get there? This, however, brings me to the first question you ask about sabotage. “Secondly, even if they were playing in the state league Division One and they formally qualify for the play-offs stage towards getting into the National Amateur League, the venue of the play-off is Bauchi and they are based in Gombe, and I am even made to understand that they were in Bauchi for eight days. I did not fund or send them there because I was not interested in any competition, so under whose sponsorship were they in Bauchi. “All these are questions begging to be answered. But I really do not want to pre-empt the NFF commissioned investigation. That is why I am also doing mine quietly and will also release mine when they finish theirs for Nigerians to see whether they NFF did a thorough job because in the past, it has been proven that our investigators, most times are not painstaking in their engagements as they sweep some things under the carpet.”
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 19:56:14 +0000
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