Salisu Yusuf has been shown the exit door by the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) after he was allegedly caught on tape receiving a bribe of $1,000 to influence players’ selection during CHAN championship.
Salisu Yusuf was handed the ban following the outcome of an investigation by the NFF into his bribery allegation that was exposed by a Ghanaian undercover journalist a few weeks back.
The footage of Coach Salisu Yusuf was aired by BBC’s Africa Eye investigation programme and placed on their website, showing Coach Salisu Yusuf and some undercover who were posing as agents of some Nigerian players in a restaurant discussing how to help their respective client get on the National team.
In the video which was the brain-work of the Ghanaian investigative journalist Anas Aremayaw Anas, saw coach Salisu Yusuf being handed the sum of $1,000 to pick two players for the home-based African championship.
Coach Salisu collected the money but warned the undercovers that it is not a guarantee that he was going to pick the players, as selections are based on form and performance [merit] in training.
Before now, Coach Salisu Yusuf has maintained his innocent by saying that the money he collected was never a bribe but a gift. He said he was set up and although he collected the gift, he did not carry through with the request of the undercover agents.
Salisu has since appeared before the ethics committee of the NFF, and a decision has been made, which is the immediate ban of the coach from all football-related activities, and a fine of $5,000.
The ethics committee ban Salisu from “all football-related activities at both national and international level” while also saying the coach can make “an appeal against the decision through the NFF Appeals Committee”.
NFF in a statement said:
“NFF found as a fact from the documentary and video evidence before it, that he accepted the cash gift of $1,000.
“[He] Offered by Tigers Player’s Agency, an undercover reporter, purportedly interested in acting on behalf of Players Osas Okoro and Rabiu Ali, for their inclusion in the list of players for 2018 CHAN Competition in Morocco.”
Coach Salisu Yusuf on his part, after his ban by NFF, still maintained his innocence saying:
“There is nothing in the allegation pointing to a demand for the money from the agents of the two principals. Rather, the agent only handed the money to me after expressing ‘hope’ that the principals would play in the Championship,”
“Be that as it may, I did accept cash handed to me by one of the said football agents, which I later discovered, upon checking, to be $750 and not $1000.” He said.