Nigeria - Sports Minister, Professor Taoheed Adedoja, Tuesday admitted that the strategy adopted by Nigeria to drum up support for the candidacy of Ibrahim Galadima for the FIFA executive seat at the recent CAF Congress in Sudan was faulty. Former Chairman of the Nigeria Football Federation, (NFF) Galadima failed to garner enough support in Khartoum and ended up polling just six votes, which was not sufficient to help him secure one of the two FIFA seats at the congress. But speaking for the first time since the congress, Adedoja, who led the Nigerian delegation to Khartoum, said that Galadima lost because the CAF delegates perceived him as a stranger in the African football fraternity.

He similarly posited that there was no enough time to sell the Galadima candidacy to the congress because the initiative only started in August last year, five months before the CAF election.

"He (Galadima) was nominated as our candidate in August last year, while I was appointed minister in January. There was no way we could have done anything beyond the ordinary for Galadima before the CAF Congress that was held in February. The simple fact is that Galadima was not on ground. Preparation for a FIFA seat is not what you start in five months.

The stepping stone to FIFA is CAF. In Khartoum all the people that Galadima contested against were executive members of CAF and have been preparing for the election in the past five years. The votes we got were as a result of hard work and Nigeria's goodwill," Adedoja said.

He defended the lobby group over allegations of not doing enough campaign for Galadima in Khartoum, insisting that they did not give up even though the reality on the ground was that his candidacy was not going to sail through.

"In future we should have a post election strategy that will ensure that we get our due in CAF and FIFA by developing a long term plan and lobbying the member of CAF."

This Day/16/03/2011