LET’S tell ourselves the truth. The domestic game is comatose. Until we run the game in Nigeria as a business, it would remain prostrate. The organisers are inept. They are not prepared to quit the job. They blame everyone else but themselves as if the league is theirs to destroy. Sadly, the domestic game has an Annual General Assembly, whose members have been turned into rubber stamps to decisions that sweep under the carpet the rot in the game. Otherwise, what would the AGA members be telling themselves at the Congress when they meet in Lagos? Would they say to the congress that the large presence of government-owned clubs isn’t killing the league?
Thirty-one years after the formation of professional football in Nigeria, nothing significant has happened. Rather, the ills of the past have become worse with the league plagued with all manner of theories in deciding which teams would win the season’s competitions outside of what happens on the pitch as in other climes? Would the Congress be happy that in the last five years the league hasn’t begun with pomp and ceremony reminiscent of what happens elsewhere? What would congress be celebrating if the league isn’t listed in the stock exchange, 31 years after?
What would the AGA Congress members be telling others that the decision to name Davidson Owumi as the league Chief Executive Officer (CEO), one year ago, is still pending, with whispers suggesting that the decision was put in abeyance by someone who isn’t a club chairman as the rulebook stipulates and wasn’t even elected to represent the league? How can a lover of the game who isn’t a club chairman head the domestic league body? Would he know where the shoes pinches? Shouldn’t the AGA Congress correct this monumental flaw to set the game on the right footing? Does this flaw not explain the morbid state of the domestic game? Shouldn’t the congress members task the NFF and LMC on adherence to club licensing regulations?
As the congress members converge on Lagos in December, there is the need for stocktaking to make the needed adjustments. A league without structures is unacceptable. Dear Congress members, it would require collective action from every stakeholder to turn things around for the better. This all-knowing disposition towards change by a few people won’t take us across the bridge of failure that the game has sunken into.
There is the need to know how much the country’s football is worth. Therefore, the Congress members should compel the league organisers to draw up a plan that would capture inter-club and intra-club transfers highlighting the movement of our players within and outside the country. This would enhance accountability in the system and reduce if not eliminate corruption. It would also answer the poser of how much the country’s football is worth.
The Congress members should also task the organisers to draw up a framework that would ensure that Nigeria’s soccer calendar aligns with the European leagues which begin from August and end in June/July. The import of this alignment is to woo the corporate players both here and in Europe to do sponsorship business with our clubs.
The organisers should work out strategies where previous sponsors of sports and its events who have embraced the entertainment businesses return to take their rightful places. This can be achieved in collaboration with the government allowing the willing sponsors to know what they are entitled to if they leverage sports.
This new arrangement with the corporate players both here and in Europe would help to build a strong, successful and sustainable football economy that can create jobs and increase the Country’s GDP.
I want to agree with the sports minister’s comments at the National Assembly at the ministry’s budget defence where he said: “We all have to get involved and even get some legislation to back us up before we can begin to see changes. “The structure of our clubs needs to change if we want to see fans fill up the stands at our stadia to watch our domestic games. Most of our clubs are government-owned and professionalism is not a priority.
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“There are little or no facilities, the welfare package for players in most clubs is not encouraging, club licensing regulations are not enforced. All these things have kept our domestic football in the doldrums.
“From 2022, we will ensure that the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF)who have oversight responsibilities over the League Management Company (LMC) is able to ensure stricter adherence to the club licensing regulations, even if we will end up having only six clubs meeting the standard, then have the games shown on television and on the NPFL.TV online platform so Nigerians can keep tabs with happenings around the clubs and games,” the Minister stated.
It exists only in its name. Nothing to cheer for from the matches, except for the excruciating experience of the fans running through tear gas’ smoke to exit the stadium. Let’s not remind ourselves about the rickety ambulances in some centres which have to be pushed to start. Or is it the painful scenario where uninformed urchins take the laws into their hands by beating referees to a stupor? Would the club officials say they don’t know those beasts who pummel the officials with cudgels and all manner of objects with the host club’s managers standing aloof?
What is there in a league where matches aren’t shown live leaving room for all kinds of aberrations to the game? Or is the video of watching visiting teams’ players jumping over the stadium’s walls to escape being lynched by angry home fans? What if one of these impromptu ‘high jumpers’ misjudge the height of the wall and slams his head on the concrete surroundings? Do those rampaging bastards care? What is paramount to them is to vent their spleen. Please don’t ask me where the match commissioners were during the fracas? Isn’t laughable that despite the diverse problems plaguing the league, whispers from certain quarters seem to suggest that the new season would begin on November 21.
This has been the style. That way the problems are swept under the carpet pending when there would be sponsorships designed to fail on arrival. With time, the participating teams would raise the alarm of the non-payment of their entitlement amounting to N10 million per season hasn’t been paid since 2017.
Soon, those who want the league to start at all costs would return to the cash-strapped LMC pleading that they should pay for the match officials’ indemnities, hotel accommodation, hospitality (body nobi wood), transportation, etc. This plea to pay referees opens the platform for desperate clubs to win all their home matches. Complaints from the visitors, when cheated, infuriates the home fans, who then take laws into their hands. Of course, the security architecture at match venues is porous largely because the clubs are reluctant to police the venue and would rather have their club’s roughneck take charge of the gates. In fact signs of likely riot at venues start from the gates, especially in the second round where beaten teams in the first round seek revenge no matter whose ox is gored.
It explains the difficulty in prosecuting the culprits after such mayhems with organisers unperturbed about the weekly pummelling of referees across the country. Those mouthing the November 21 kickoff date should ensure that no team is indebted to any player, coach or official. This idea of players being owed holding defaulting clubs’ personnel in Gestapo manner smacks of kidnapping which shouldn’t be treated with kids gloves.
The league should never begin without a credible television rights holder who would show matches at the terrestrial level not the bogey one where fans are compelled to watch the domestic league games on television after loading their phones with data. This is one of the reasons fans opt to watch European league matches by paying between N100 to N300 to watch more than three European matches at viewing centres.
If the AGA Congress is serious, the league should not begin with these anomalies unresolved. Nigeria won’t cease to be a sovereign nation if the league doesn’t hold this season. Enough of the mess. Enough.
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