A former member of the immediate past Nigeria Football Federation board has said the N17 billion intervention fund received from the Federal Government was largely used to settle outstanding liabilities inherited from the previous administration.

The former board member, who spoke anonymously amid ongoing investigations into the NFF’s finances, said it would be wrong to treat the N17 billion allocation in isolation or regard the larger funding as evidence of financial wrongdoing.

The clarification followed comments by National Sports Commission Chairman Shehu Dikko, who recently compared funding received by the Ibrahim Gusau-led NFF board with that received by the previous administration led by Amaju Pinnick.

Dikko said the Gusau-led board received N17 billion in intervention funding through a single payment, compared with about N15 billion received by Pinnick during his eight years as NFF president from 2014 to 2022.

The former board member said the Gusau administration inherited substantial financial obligations, including a 23-month salary backlog owed to former Super Eagles coach José Peseiro.

He said Peseiro's monthly salary was $70,000 and that the outstanding payments amounted to more than $1 million.

The source also alleged that outstanding match allowances and bonuses owed to Super Eagles players and officials, some dating back to the qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, were among the liabilities inherited by the Gusau-led board.

He challenged Dikko, who served as second vice-president under the Pinnick administration, to acknowledge the debts inherited by the subsequent board.

The former official maintained that receiving more government funding than a previous administration did not, by itself, establish financial impropriety, arguing that the key issue was how the money was applied.

He said the exchange rate also needed to be considered when comparing the funding received by the two administrations.

According to him, the naira traded at between N200 and N600 to the dollar during Pinnick's tenure, while the N17 billion intervention fund was released when the dollar was trading at about N1,500.

He therefore argued that the N15 billion received during the previous administration could have had greater dollar value than the N17 billion received by the Gusau-led board.