Super Eagles head coach Stephen Keshi has escaped Fifa’s sanctions over allegedly racist comments made towards former Malawi coach, Tom Saintfeit.
According to Thisday, a spokesman of the world football governing body has revealed that the Fifa Disciplinary Committee after investigating Saintfeit’s complaint, decided to issue out a warning to Keshi over the matter.
The spokesman said the decision on the Sainfeit petition was reached after the Chairman of the Fifa Disciplinary Committee, Claudio Sulser, referred to Article 57 of the Fifa Disciplinary Code.
The section of Fifa rule book translates that Keshi’s conduct was to fall under offensive behaviour and flair play and not racism as Saintfeit claimed.
Keshi is hereby expected to guarantee that incidents of such high gravity do not occur again in future.
“If such incident should happen again, the Fifa Disciplinary Committee will be left with no other option than to impose sanctions against the coach, Mr. Stephen Keshi,” the Fifa spokesman, who came in from Switzerland, warned.
Keshi was given a two-week ultimatum last month to respond to a petition written against him by the Football Association of Malawi (Fam) over comments aimed at Saintfeit.
The pronouncement will be a welcomed relief for the coach and Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) ahead of Eagles’ trip to Addis Ababa, where Nigeria is due to engage Ethiopia on October 13.
