By Ade Ojeikere
Nigeria sports is a huge joke. Everything is possible. Nobody wants to quit even if the roof of the place rests on their shoulders. Our leaders are very forgetful; otherwise, why should the organisers of the domestic league still be thinking of supervising another season, with the deluge of problems in the system? They met a league with title sponsors, television rights holder and other marketing windows, which yielded revenue, but they frustrated the sponsors with vision-less policies, which turned match venues to theatres of violence.
Nothing works in the league. The only predictable thing about the organisers is their penchant for postponing games abruptly, most times with the away teams already in town. Members are efficient in attending meetings and taking themselves to European tours to see how the game is run. Yet, nothing changes. Perhaps, they slept off when being driven in posh cars around such European countries.
Pitches are like pigsties, sometimes; other times, they are just good enough for cattle grazing. But the organisers don’t care for as long as there are two goalposts, the two teams are ready to play and there is a referee at the centre. Of course, there won’t be anything to cheer under this setting, especially with the players playing on empty stomachs, occasioned by outstanding wages and allowances prevalent in most clubs. Players’ welfare packages seems abnormal, with many telling the players and coaches to be happy that they earn a living in a country where millions are unemployed.
Hitherto, no club was registered for the new season without settling outstanding salaries for the previous season. The rule was adhered to. But the organisers couldn’t effect it because there wasn’t a title sponsor; nor did they have a television rights holder, whose cash accruing to the clubs was deducted at source and used to pay all outstanding debts. A dilemma ensued. Rather than meet with the governors whose states own the clubs, the organisers relied on lackeys of the governors, some of whom may have fallen out of favour.
Yearly, these state-owned teams get budgets allocated to them. But the players and coaches get mere pittance. They dare not grumble; otherwise, they get fired. Club chairmen operated like monsters, preferring to exploit the inefficiencies of the organisers to do what they like with the clubs’ funds. Today, nobody can say how much our clubs are worth. Nobody dares ask how much players earn since many cannot remember when they were last paid.
With this setting, the organisers had no product to sell to investors beyond trying to use their friends in high places to broker a deal. Simply put, no arm of the league is functional, culminating in the easy exit of most of our continental representative, beaten by clubs from less prominent football nations as Nigeria. Since the league was always in abeyance, the home-based players couldn’t compete with their foreign-based counterparts whenever they are invited to fight for shirts in our national teams. They are used as training materials. Ironically, the few lucky ones that get to Europe return as kings to get shirts – just because of their change of residence.
In the absence of a soccer calendar, domestic league players resort to heading out of the country to all manner of leagues in the name of being foreign-based to attract an invitation to the national team. Such moves are shady, as shylock agents trade them into slavery. Many of such moves have also seen our young stars lose their form or go into oblivion.
The list of such lost stars is legendary. Where do I start? Who will I ask why such destructive moves still persists? Of course, when good players leave the country, those left are those still eager to bolt away to Europe or the Diaspora, knowing that they have no future remaining here. And with a system that worships discovered stars, attention
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