Why FIFA Deducted Points From Super Eagles – Pinnick

President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick has explained the real reason FIFA deducted points from the Super Eagles in its pre-world cup qualification series.

The world football apex body FIFA had on Tuesday sanctioned Nigeria and fined the NFF the sum of 6,000 Swiss francs (N2, 162, 923), declaring the Russia 2018 World Cup qualifying match against Algeria on 10 November, 2017 forfeited.

The match ended 1-1 but the Super Eagles’ point became null after the FIFA decision.

FIFA also awarded Algeria three points and three goals for fielding an “ineligible” Shehu Abdullahi in the match.

The sanction is a result of Abdullahi’s failure to serve the automatic one-match ban imposed on him.

Abdullahi had received two yellow cards during the World Cup qualification.

Pinnick said he takes the responsibility for the error and apologised to Nigerians, saying the sanctions will not take away the focus of the Super Eagles ahead of the FIFA contest next year.

“Good morning. I’ll start by tendering my wholehearted apology to Nigeria and Nigerians for the Shehu Abdullahi error,” Pinnick tweeted on Wednesday.

“It is unforgivable and could have undone months of hard work. As head of the Federation, I take responsibility for this. It happened on my watch.

“While accepting the Federation’s fault here, let me quickly explain how this went by unnoticed. It doesn’t change the fact that we didn’t keep our eyes on the ball and will help us in our planned restructuring of the Technical and Competitions Department.

“Shehu Abdullahi got his first yellow card in our very first preliminary match against Swaziland away. When the draws for the Group Stages were made, the Technical staff made a grave error; assumption.

“They assumed the cards gotten prior would not count.

“To be fair to them, throughout the qualifying series, official match documents didn’t even show that Shehu Abdullahi was on a yellow card. For instance, when we played Cameroon, Mikel, Moses and Balogun were put on notice that they had yellow cards.

“Team meetings were even held about how to handle their cards so they wouldn’t miss crucial games. Shehu Abdullahi was never in the mix. Shehu then received a yellow against Zambia in our penultimate game, two years after the Swaziland match.

“Another grave mistake then occurred. Fifa sent an email to the technical officer in charge, that Shehu Abdullahi was suspended for the Algeria match. In a twist of fate, that officer was in hospital, with a severe heart condition, battling for his life.

“The biggest knock to our system is the fact that his official correspondences should have been forwarded to more than one person. It wasn’t. We went into our last match not knowing about Fifa’s notice. Not acceptable, I agree, but these are the facts of the matter.

“On the match day, we were unaware, the match officials were unaware and our opponents were unaware. It was a horrendous error and we at the Federation are truly apologetic. We thank God it did not undo years of hard work.

“It was a lack of due diligence in and by one of our departments and we are ensuring that errors like these never happen again. On behalf of all of us at the the NFF; I apologise, Nigeria. Our focus remains. We will soar higher. Thank you.”