Amaju Pinnick, president of the Nigeria Football Federation, is young and ambitious like many people his age and wants to leave a good legacy after his four-year term of office.
At 44, he’s already been head of the Delta State Sports Council, a region known for its wealth of athletics talent which has consistently topped the medals table during the National Sports Festival.
His decision to regularly send athletes abroad on expensive training paid off with laurels. It accounts for the reason he has insisted on sending referees from the domestic league and backroom staff to England for knowledge acquisition.
Under his watch, Warri Wolves grew from a small town club to continental challengers and could win their first Nigeria Professional Football League title in less than five years.
However, he has also been embroiled in controversy, as the transfer saga of former Super Eagles midfielder Sunday Mba brought him under scrutiny two years ago.
While Pinnick has denied claims that he blocked Mba’s move to CA Bastia because of the financial gains he stood to make, he has never shied away from telling media that he’s a comfortable man who can afford to spend the summer in America with his family.
With funds from the oil-rich Delta state propelling him into the office of president of the NFF in September 2014 as well as its attendant crises, Pinnick has slowly tried to gain acceptance among the media and the public.
He has also sought to win back corporate Nigeria, the powerful consumer brands and communications giants that finance the national football teams.
After years of graft and lack of proper accountability, Pinnick has said one of his main tasks is to clean the Augean stables and ensure that the federation once again earns the support of its esteemed sponsors in order to depend less on funding from the federal government.
