Nigerian football leaders fired in team suspension

ABUJA, Nigeria – The Nigerian Football Federation fired its two top leaders yesterday in a bid to appease the West African nation’s president after his threat to suspend its national team from international competition for two years.

In a statement, the federation’s executive committee said it fired president Sani Lulu and vice president Amanze Ugbulam, as well as a member of the federation’s technical committee. The statement said the committee wanted ‘to tender a resolved apology’ to all Nigerians over the team’s lacklustre performance at the World CupWe ‘passionately appeal to the president … to reconsider the earlier action of government to withdraw all the national football teams from CAF/Fifa competitions for two years,’ the statement read. The federation also promised ‘to take urgent steps to address the ‘maladministration’ of football in the country.’A spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan announced Wednesday that the team would be suspended for two years after Nigeria left the World Cup competition with just one point, which it earned in a 2-2 draw with South Korea in its last game. Nigeria lost to Argentina 1-0 in its Group B opener and fell to Greece 2-1 in a game turned by the first-half expulsion of midfielder Sani Kaita.The suspension also follows corruption allegations which surrounded the team in the run-up to the competition. Presidential spokesman Ima Niboro said Wednesday that all funds directed toward the Nigeria Football Federation would be examined and ‘all those found wanting will be sanctioned.’Fifa has said it will suspend Nigeria from world football unless the country’s government overturns its ban on the national team by today.The Nigerians haven’t won a World Cup match since 1998, having two losses and a draw in 2002 and failing to qualify for the 2006 tournament. The team, nicknamed the Super Eagles by loyal supporters and the Super Chickens by dissenters, faced almost countrywide derision after finishing third in the African Cup of Nations earlier in the year.Nigeria fired coach Shaibu Amodu in February and later hired Swedish coach Lars Lagerback to take charge only about four months before the World Cup. – Nampa-AP