Chairman of the Cross River State Football Association, CRS FA, Essien Ayi, has revealed that football as a sport in Cross River State, has completely died.
Ayi, a federal legislator, who represents Akpabuyo/Bakassi/Calabar South Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, made this disclosure at the extra-ordinary Congress Of CR NFA, held in Calabar today, February 21, 2019.
He also revealed that the CRS FA has not been given any subvention by the Cross River State Government since 2015. “Every year, they make budgets and put huge figures as money going to help sponsor the development and sustainence of football in the state, but in the end we see nothing. Every year you go and defend the FA’s budget and then nothing happens in the end. See, we had a painful situation in this state where Lafarge, the cement company here sponsored Calabar Rovers, but those in charge of Rovers then, squandered that opportunity. In fact for all the millions that the cement company gave, the administrators deliberately refused to buy the team a bus, they preferred instead to hire a bus for N600, 000 a trip and in the end we discovered that the bus that was hired, belonged to one of the administrators”, he painfully revealed. He passionately appealed to the state government to have a rethink and invest in football, considering that the advantages are huge.
Essien Ayi’s tenure as CR FA Chairman, was also extended, in line with directives from the headquarters of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, Abuja, ssuspendingelections into state Football Associations, until after the 2019 general elections.
Is Essien Ayi just realizing that football in CRS had died long ago…under his watch as FA chairman? Or is he trying to glamorize his passivity as chairman ?. What effort did he make using his political weight to get government to give attention to the sports.
Presenting and defending a budget is not usually enough. I’m sure it was in consideration of his political capacity beyond passion for the sports that earned him the position. Either he had been lazy or passive. Period.
Abeg make person rest with all these guys.