Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) have resolved to chart a new course for football, sports and youth development in the country after a meeting between the Sports Minister and the Board of the NFF in Abuja on Friday.

The meeting between the Sports Minister and all fifteen members of the NFF board was the first between both parties since the appointment of Dare and comes on the heels of ongoing investigations into the financial dealings of the NFF by several federal government anti-graft agencies.

In a communique released at the end of the meeting, both parties resolved to work together to ensure assent is swiftly given to the NFF bill by the President, “reposition the domestic league”, ensure the rehabilitation of sporting infrastructure as well as institutionalise processes to ensure early preparations and mobilisation of funds for participation in tournaments and championships.

Acknowledging the insidious damage allegations of financial improprieties have done to the image of the federation and the distractions caused by feuds within and outside the NFF, a communique issued at the end of the meeting announced that the Sports Minister will work with the NFF “to reach out to all factions with a view to having an amicable resolution of all problems”.

This, however, led former Minister of Sports Solomon Dalung to take a cheeky swipe at his successor with a sarcastic post on microblogging site, Twitter, suggesting that with Dare’s intervention, all corruption investigations and charges against the NFF and its leadership would now be dropped.

Dalung had often been fingered as the brains behind the unrelenting harsh glare into the books of the NFF when he was Sports Minister with many accusing him of using the anti-graft agencies as a means to force out the current leadership of the NFF in order to install his stooges.