The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will be contracting the distribution of the $2m (N761m) relief funds to its external auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
This was made known by its president, Amaju Pinnick on Channels Television and monitored by our correspondent.
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According to Pinnick, the federation is yet to get all the funds but acknowledged that only the sponsors have sent in their funds.
It will be recalled that the NFF had approved the relief funds to be shared across the various Clubs and governing bodies of the various Leagues as a booster for their preparation ahead of the 2020/2021 league season.
The leagues are Nigeria Professional Football League, Nigeria National League, Nigeria Women Football League and the Nigeria Nationwide League.
In a communique released after the virtual meeting of the NFF Executive Committee, the total sum is made up of $1,000,000 (being FIFA’s support for restarting the football season); $500,0000 (being FIFA’s dedicated support for women’s football); $300,000 (CAF’s support to its Member Associations); $200,000 (NFF’s support from Sponsors’ Funds).
“When we had finished everything, I personally had to send it to FIFA to get their final bye on it emphasizing that $1.5m of the $2m is theirs, they came back hailing us that it was commendable. After we got the message from FIFA, we sent it to the ministry for their own input. From there we brought it to the Executive Committee which is statutory for its approval.
“We have not received all the funds. We are expecting the one from CAF soon, we are expecting a $1m from FIFA now and the $500,000 in January. The ones from our sponsors are here already.
“We want a thorough system when we are distributing and we are talking to PwC, our external auditors to see how we can outsource the distribution of these funds to them. They will distribute and track.
“It will be easy for them when they want to carry out their audit next year. I pray we don’t have to do it ourselves but if we need to, we have a very competent director of finance that will do it. Our account is domiciled in CBN and the money goes out from there straight to hit the account of all the beneficiaries and we are not taking a dime out of it,” he said.
