LAGOS – Pius Asaba, a member of the Africa Amputee Football Federation for Africa (AFFA) has advised the Nigeria Amputee Football Federation (NAFF) to take proactive step to ensure participation in international competitions.
Asaba told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos that the federation should not always wait for the release of fund from the National Sports Commission (NSC), before the federation pays its annual affiliation fee to the AFFA. [eap_ad_1] He said that the body should also make sure that they indicated interest in attendance of meeting and training programmes of international bodies.
“Affiliation fee is fundamental because it is a major criterion that the international bodies referred to when invitations to tournament are sent out for any competition.
“Therefore NAFF must henceforth ensure its regular payment of affiliation fee to the appropriate quarter; the reason is to avoid any form of sanctions,’’ he said.
He said the fulfillment of the requirement by NAFF would compel the African body not to deny them of any benefit attached to competitions, such as training tours, friendlies and souvenirs.
“The African body also takes cognizance of countries that are regular with payments and so when the benefit that is attached to it comes up, they refer to their record.
“These benefits go a long way to enhance the development of amputee football in the country, apart from the federation coaches and the footballers too would benefit from the Africa body.
Asaba, who was a former secretary of NAFF, said that the country’s national team could not participate in the World Cup scheduled for Mexico from Nov. 25 to Nov. 31 due to non- payment of the 2014 affiliations fees.
“Our non-participation in the world cup is a big minus to our development in the game, and this is as a result of our non-payment of the 2014 affiliation fee, so we must avoid such affordable mistake in the future,’’ he added. (NAN)
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