War Looms In Oyo Football As Commissioner And FA Fight Dirty

Bickering between the Oyo State Commissioner for Sports Dapo Lam-Adesina and the hierarchy of the state Football Association took dirty dimension yesterday when the Commissioner and state FA boss Leye Adepoju engaged in war of words which almost marred the FA Cup final between 3SC and Crown.

It took the intervention of some top Government functionaries and club Chairmen before the youthful Oyo Sports Commissioner who had ordered Lekan Salami Sports Complex, Adamasingba Ibadan the venue for the State FA Final shut to bar the state FA the organizer of the tourney from using it before he changed his mind.

The development which made the match to commence much later than the scheduled time with all gates thrown open on the order of the Commissioner as against the plan of the FA who had advertised gate-fees prizes for the different categories of stands.

Earlier before the match a peace meeting was convened, which had in attendance the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) Alhaji Akin Olajide, Chairman Crown FC, Alhaji Noah Bello, Crown Afijio FC, Elder Ogundiran Dijo and some other personalities where the commissioner and the NFF executive member engaged themselves in words of words using
abusive language on each other.

Investigations revealed that the cold war between the two started precisely a year ago during the last year’s FA Cup final, when the organizer (Oyo FA) called the Deputy Speaker of the State house of Assembly, Hon. Babatunde Olaniyan to take the kick-off, the development that seemed not pleasing to the Commissioner who was also at the stadium.

''Since then the Commissioner has been showing apathy to all our programmes. We have written several letters to him seeking his assistance in developing the game in the state but, he always turned it into the bin.

''Twice we have written to him concerning this final, but what he was claiming today was that he was not duly briefed about
the match,'' said a member of the Oyo FA who crafted for anonymity.

3SC defeated the Ogbomoso professional side by a lone goal scored Tony Ejomaregwe in the first half by to emerge the state champion for 2013.

Akanbi Agiri