Coach Samson Siasia has expressed his readiness to resume his passion for coaching after completing a ban imposed by FIFA over match-fixing allegations. Speaking at an event organized by friends and parents of the Siaone Soccer Academy in Abuja, Siasia shared his emotional journey over the past five years, reflecting on his time away from football.<\/p>\n
Siasia, a former Super Eagles player and coach, was initially handed a lifetime ban, which was later reduced to five years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2019. He revealed that the ban was a shock and devastating, as he was never informed of the investigation against him and was not given the opportunity to defend himself before being sentenced.<\/p>\n
“I was never informed that I was under investigation for any allegation. I did not have the opportunity to defend myself even once before I was banned,” Siasia explained. He went on to express his gratitude to God for the end of the ordeal and affirmed his commitment to continuing his coaching career with the same honesty and sincerity he had maintained throughout his 25-year career.<\/p>\n
Siasia emphasized that despite the ban, he remained deeply connected to football, using the time to update his knowledge of the game. “Not one day out of the 1,826 days was wasted in agony or hopelessness. It was a period of serious reflection and painstaking updating,” he said, assuring his supporters that he is now back, more resolved and determined than ever.<\/p>\n
Siasia concluded by thanking those who supported him during his difficult period, particularly his family, supporters, and sports journalists, as well as the committee of friends and parents of Siaone Soccer Academy for organizing the event in his honor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Coach Samson Siasia has expressed his readiness to resume his passion for coaching after completing a ban imposed by FIFA over match-fixing allegations. Speaking at an event organized by friends and parents of the Siaone Soccer Academy in Abuja, Siasia shared his emotional journey over the past five years, reflecting on his time away from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":45401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45402,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45400\/revisions\/45402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}