The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), also known as Crayon in the music industry, has been the subject of a depressing story from Charles Chibuezechukwu’s background.
Crayon claimed that certain high-ranking NFF officials who preferred a candidate from an affluent background over him ended his football career.
Crayon recalled how unscrupulous NFF officials intervened and changed the selection process so that a different person with financial clout was chosen instead of him after he had been chosen to join a national youth team in 2015. He was severely affected by this unfair choice, which also contributed to the despair he was going through at the time.
The ‘Trench To Triumph’ artist opened up about this painful incident during a recent interview with Cool FM Nigeria in Lagos.
Crayon said, “I became depressed in 2015 because I couldn’t get into the university. All my friends were in school. At that time I was really close to my friends. I was the youngest among my friends. Every time they are around is always fun. Then they all got admitted to the universities in Ghana, Benin, etc. I was just me in the hood.
“It was so boring. I didn’t have anything to do, nowhere to go. And my footballing career at that time wasn’t really kicking off for me as well. I used to play football. I used to be a proper footballer. They called me ‘Coutinho’ in my hood. You know prime Coutinho who played for Liverpool?
“I tried to become a professional footballer but it didn’t work out for me because football in Nigeria is quite dicey. There is a lot of corruption. I don’t want to mention names because it might hurt some people. They are big names; top [football] officials.
“At a time I went for one screening in Surulere [National Stadium], they [NFF officials] picked me and they had to like swindle me and pick someone else because the person had money and connections. So, at that point, I became disappointed. I went home depressed.”
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