Football’s world governing body, FIFA has stopped the annual $ 1.5 million development grant to Nigeria after discovering “traces of corruption” in how previous funds were spent by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
AfricanFootball.com reports that FIFA went further to issue the NFF a final warning “to straighten its financial records.”
The Nigerian government is now expected to quickly step into this latest development after Sports Minister Solomon Dalung first expressed serious misgivings on the back of a FIFA query on how NFF used grants paid them.
NFF this week received the FIFA leter signed from the office in charge of the national associations.
FIFA member-associations including Nigeria began to receive increased annual grants under new president Gianni Infantino.
Previously the associations were paid $250,000 per annum.
But this has since been increased to between $1.2 million and $1.5 million to each FA.
The FIFA hammer comes at a time the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operatives are investigating a petition against the NFF and auditors questioned the handling of the federation’s finances for last fiscal year.
