Posted by By MONICA IHEAKAM on
It is no more news that Acting Nigeria Football Association (NFA) scribe, Fanny Amun, threw decorum to the dogs, Sunday, when he assaulted former FA member, Alhaja Ayo Omidiran.
It is no more news that Acting Nigeria Football Association (NFA) scribe, Fanny Amun, threw decorum to the dogs, Sunday, when he assaulted former FA member, Alhaja Ayo Omidiran.
He gave the woman the beating of her life. But the news now is that the woman had threatened to drag Amun to court.
The drama, which had been unfolding right from the Gateway Hotel camp of the Falconets and their visitors, Harambe Queens of Kenya, was carried over to the newly built Gateway International Stadium in Ijebu-Ode, where Fanny Amun ordered his bodyguards to beat up Alhaja Omidiran.
Not respecting the presence of the Minister of Youth and Sports, Dr. Samaila Seidu Sambawa; the Director of Sports in the ministry, Dr. Amos Adamu; Executive Governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel and his wife, Funke, and the teeming crowd of soccer loving fans who came out to have a glimpse of the Falconets and the ever ready Football Supporters Club, led by their president-General worldwide, Dr. Rafiu Ladipo, Fanny manhandled Omidiran in the players dressing room.
Daily Sunsport enquiries revealed that Fanny Amun, on getting to the dressing room of the players, ordered Alhaja Omidiran, who is the co-ordinator of the team, out of the room.
Omidiran's refusal to budge from the room, it was gathered, angered Amun who has not been on speaking terms with her, as he ordered his bodyguards to beat-up the woman. But for the timely intervention of the match commissioners and referees for the match played between Nigeria and Kenya, Alhaja Omidiran would have been beaten black-and-blue by Amun's boys.
Also beaten up was a coach attached to the Nigerian girls, who came from Alhaja Omidiran's camp, Coach Joy Nnenna Etim, whose camera was also destroyed by Amun's boys as she tried to take pictures of the assault.
Alhaja Omidiran later came up to the Press Gallery where her husband, Alhaji Omidiran and their son, and NFA Board member, Elder Adejumo were sitting, to report the show of shame. She vowed to face Amun ‘fire-for-fire'.
Alhaja's words: "Amun came into the dressing room and ordered his boys to beat me up. If not for the match commissioners and referees who intervened, they were ready to injure me in Ijebu-Ode land.
"This time around Amun has gotten more than he bargained for because his plans will not work. I am ready to follow-up this case to any level."
Dr. Amos Adamu, who got wind of the situation, later summoned Amun and called him to order.
Also, after a lengthy chat with the Sports minister, Amun went back to the field where he sat down on the tartan tracks of the newly constructed stadium.
Daily Sunsport efforts to get Fanny Amun's own side of the story yielded no results as, in his usual manner, he told reporters: "No comment."
At the Gateway Hotels camp of the Falconets earlier, before the match kicked off, sources close to the Glasshouse disclosed that Amun had been doing everything possible to thwart the orders of Alhaja Omidiran, even to the minute when jersies and kits were shared to the players and officials.
According to the sources, the fist fight would have started right from the hotel if not for the cool, matured and calm way Alhaja Omidiran went about calming frayed nerves and encouraging the coaches to work together to ensure that Sundays match was successful.
However, the roll-call of dignitaries, the teeming crowd of Ijebu-Ode indigenes, journalists from all over the states and those who were cheering from their homes as the match was beamed live to them at their various homes, is a clear testimony that Alhaja Ayo Omidiran has indeed proved her mettle and her foresight of bringing the match to Ijebu-Ode.