Pinnick: sacked by court in Nigeria, appointed as CAF 1st vice-president

President of the Nigeria Football Federation Amaju Pinnick was on Thursday appointed as 1st Vice-President of the Confederation of African Football.

The position became vacant after erstwhile President of the Ghana Football Association Kwesi Nyantakyi resigned from office in June following an undercover exposition of corrupt practices in the GFA.

In a letter to the members of the confederation, which was signed by its Secretary General, Amr Fahmy, CAF announced that Pinnick’s appointment would be ratified at the continental body’s next Executive Committee meeting in September.

The letter read, “Following the resignation of the 1st Vice-President Mr. Kwesi Nyantakyi, CAF President, after consulting the members of the Emergency Committee, appointed Mr. Amaju Melvin Pinnick as 1st Vice-President.

“This decision is immediately applicable, in accordance with article 27 para. 2 of the Statutes, which will be ratified by the Executive Committee in its session scheduled on the 27 and 28 of September 2018.

“We thank you for kindly taking note.”

Pinnick was most recently a member of CAF’s Executive Committee. He is currently at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where he played a role as match commissioner in Sweden’s victory over Switzerland.

He is also set to be the match commissioner as Uruguay and France go head-to-head in a quarter-final encounter on Friday.

Meanwhile, the former Delta State Commissioner for Sports is in the middle of a leadership tussle in the NFF after Chris Giwa resumed at the Glasshouse office of the Nigeria Football Federation in Abuja, as the president of the football body on Monday.

Giwa, who was elected as NFF president on August 26, 2014, has been locked in a battle with the Pinnick-led NFF board, after an order from a Jos High Court had stopped the election which brought Pinnick to office on September 30, 2014 in Warri, Delta State.

Giwa’s takeover came after the Ministry of Youth and Sports directed the NFF to comply with the judgment of the Supreme Court delivered on April 27, which restored the orders of the Federal High Court setting aside the purported election into the Executive Committee of the NFF held on September 30, 2014.