NPFL: ODSFA Chairman refutes claims on Sunshine Stars Problems

Following claims by Kabiru Dogo, the technical adviser of sunshine stars on problems facing his club,the chairman, Ondo State Football Agency, ODSFA ,Tajudeen Akinyemi says issues of team’s performance is due to FIFA’s ban on the team.

According to Akinyemi, all inherited challenges are being resolved by the agency.

Sunshine Stars Technical Adviser, Kabiru Dogo recently shifted the blame of not signing new players on the Ondo state Football Agency,ODSFA which was part of the problems facing the team.

In his post match news conference after playing 1-1 draw against Warri Wolves and asked why there was no new signings on the pitch of play, Dogo said that the management of the team were in the best position to answer the question.

Dogo Noted that with the performance of his team in preseason, he was of the opinion that his team had the qualities to perform better.

“Anybody that is here today will know that in spite of that, we managed to play, just that unfortunately, the result didn’t speak of the performance of the two teams.”

Reacting in an interview with ROVING REPORTERS, the chairman of ODSFA, Tajudeen Akinyemi said development was because of a ban placed on the team due to some debts left behind by the former chairman, John Ola Mafo.

Akinyemi said “We had two debt cases with FIFA, one player from Burkina Faso and the other from Ghana. The Burkina Faso Money is about #5.8Million while the Ghana’s case is about #16Million.

The money i am talking about had been owed by former chairman, Chief John Ola Mafo who was collecting #100Million per subvention. When i came, i was given #30million per subvention and i have just spent two years as the chairman of ODSFA.

We contacted LMC that we would be paying them in instalment but they took us to FIFA, after taking us to FIFA, we were banned from registering our new players until we pay the debt.

I had to travel to Abuja to see Mr governor ( Oluwarotimi Akeredolu) to report the situation and the governor immediately approved #22Million being the total debt we are owing.

You know it will always take some time before the approval would materialise because of processes we will have to go through.

In order to avoid such delay to affect the team, i had to pay the debt from the subvention i got. I paid #5.8 Million from one of the players and I paid #4million but we were asked to pay everything before the ban would be lifted on us.

Fortunately, we were able to get the money as released by Mr governor and paid all money exactly last week Friday and we are now waiting for FIFA to unban us.

We are also putting much pressure on NFF to help us facilitate the process so that we can register our new players and take them to Enugu for our next match.

The technical adviser of Sunshine Stars had contacted me and denied the allegation that he accused ODSFA of being responsible for the poor performance of the team because i carry him along on every development regarding the issue.

Let me tell you, Sunshine stars FC is among very few clubs that don’t owe players any money and you can ask around because payment of players is our first priority.

In the history of Sunshine stars, there was no time they paraded the kind of players that we have gotten now and i know the performance of the team will improve so much with our new players.

He urged fans and other stakeholders to keep supporting the club, giving the assurance that Sunshine stars will be representing the country in the continent.