Former Super Eagles player and coach, Samson Siasia has appealed to Nigerians for help to raise $250,000.
He said that the funds would help him file to overturn the life ban imposed on him by world football governing body, FIFA. The case is presently before the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS).
The ex-Eagles star made the appeal while appearing on NTA’s Sports Parliament on Thursday night.
According to Siasia, the funds will help him raise a legal team to defend him at the CAS.
He revealed that appeals he made privately to some influential persons fell on deaf ears. The former coach of the Nigeria senior, U20 and U23 sides disclosed that of all the young players he has coached, only Odion Ighalo offered him any form of financial assistance.
He said this informed his public appeal for help from Nigerians.
Recall that FIFA in August 2019 banned Siasia from all football-related activities for life.
“The Ethics Committee has found Mr. Siasia, a former official of the Nigeria Football Federation, guilty of having accepted that he would receive bribes in relation to the manipulation of matches in violation of the Fifa Code of Ethics,” the FIFA statement announcing the ban read.
He was also fined $50,000.
But Siasia, 52, filed an appeal at CAS on August 29, after filing a FIFA appeal on August 27.
“I wish to state that I have never been and would never be a party to any form of unethical conduct or perversion in the discharge of my duties in any capacity,” he told BBC at the time.
Maintaining his innocence on the NTA programme, Siasia said that FIFA imposed the ban without giving him adequate opportunity to defend himself.
He explained that he was banned because somebody who was involved in match-fixing had a chat with him through his email in 2009.
Siasia further explained that in the course of investigating the said man, FIFA discovered he had a chat with him.
According to Siasia, the world football body sent him an email to appear before an investigating committee, but he was not online to reply, saying that was why he was handed a life ban without hearing his side of the story.
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