{"id":116753,"date":"2024-04-23T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up"},"modified":"2024-04-23T10:24:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T09:24:47","slug":"fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up","title":{"rendered":"FIFA asked NFF not to tell me I was under investigation \u2013 Siasia opens up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Former head coach of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia, has hit out at the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, for their lackadaisical attitude during the period when FIFA was investigating him for match-fixing.<\/p>\n

Siasia was found guilty of bribery and alleged involvement in match-fixing.<\/p>\n

The world football governing body hit Siasia with a life ban from all football-related activities in 2019.<\/p>\n

But upon appeal, the punishment was reduced to five years.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview with Athlist, the 56-year-old whose ban ends in a few months, accused the NFF of failing to help him during the FIFA investigations.<\/p>\n

Siasia said: \u201cNigeria abandoned me at that time of need, that\u2019s my own take on how this thing played out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an allegation, they said bribery. What is bribery? Is it not when money changes hands? Was there any proof of that? There was none.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke with someone that was trying to hire me as a coach in Australia. I didn\u2019t know the guy was a match-fixer, but FIFA knew this guy. Why would they allow him to be around any FIFA tournament?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when they found out through emails, our correspondence about how this guy would take me to Australia. I played in Australia, so I felt it would be nice to go back there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about how much salaries, transfers, bonuses, sign-on fees, and that was all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen FIFA was looking for me, I didn\u2019t even know. I am not affiliated to FIFA, their affiliation is with the NFF. So they went to the NFF and told them not to let me know that they were investigating me. But if they didn\u2019t tell me, how was I supposed to defend myself?<\/p>\n

\u201cThen they sent me a letter, but it went to my spam. It was two days before the ban that I found out that FIFA was looking for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we started to see how we could communicate with them to see how I could have a hearing. But they said the time had elapsed and I should go to CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sports).<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me to do that was like two days. To find a sports lawyer in this country is not easy. You can hardly find one. So we struggled and managed. I can tell you that the boy we took to write the appeal brief for me to get that hearing is suing me up till today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been dragging because he said I have to pay \u20ac300,000 even though our initial agreement was in euros. I\u2019m still struggling with that one just because Nigerians couldn\u2019t stand up on their feet and check what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Nigeria<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Nigeria. Former head coach of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia, has hit out at the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, for their lackadaisical attitude during the period when FIFA was investigating him for match-fixing. Siasia was found guilty of bribery and alleged involvement in match-fixing. The world football governing body hit Siasia with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":116751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[1570,2140,294,861,254,9383],"class_list":["post-116753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-fifa","tag-nff","tag-nigeria","tag-siasia"],"yoast_head":"\nFIFA asked NFF not to tell me I was under investigation \u2013 Siasia opens up - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former head coach of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia, has hit out at the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, for their lac ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FIFA asked NFF not to tell me I was under investigation \u2013 Siasia opens up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former head coach of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia, has hit out at the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, for their lac ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-04-23T07:00:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-04-23T09:24:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2024\/04\/sm_1713847748.347366.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"FIFA asked NFF not to tell me I was under investigation \u2013 Siasia opens up\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-04-23T07:00:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-04-23T09:24:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up\"},\"wordCount\":476,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2024\/04\/sm_1713847748.347366.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"FIFA\",\"NFF\",\"Nigeria\",\"Siasia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/fifa-asked-nff-not-to-tell-me-i-was-under-investigation-siasia-opens-up\",\"name\":\"FIFA asked NFF not to tell me I was under investigation \u2013 Siasia opens up - 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