Browsing through the internet these days throws up interesting news stories from the educative to the bizarre ones, depending on which of these stories tickle your fancy. For this writer, stories on sports excite me with particular interests in football and cricket. A few times tennis, especially when the Williams sisters (Venus and Serena not forgetting their father), held court in the women’s game. One of my younger brothers introduced golf to me and I’ve taken an interest in watching the elite game with plenty of differences and a lot to cheer about, only if you know the rules.
For soccer lovers, we are thrilled with fallouts from scenes not captured by the human eye, but which make for interesting reading for readers, with more videos to show how the game can be made beautiful with proper planning. Stories and pictures capturing how winners emerged and the losers made to rue their misfortunes during the 2023/2024 football season litter the internet.
Watching football being played the proper way albeit the Manchester City style can be entertaining. It can also be fascinating with the Cityzens having 83 % possession against West Ham’s 17 % at the Etihad Stadium, with some delusionary Gunners’ fans wishing that such a game could cause severe pain to the hosts. No way. As they say in pidgin English ”monkey no dey jump go back.”
Watching soccer on television can be educative through live commentaries where we were told that since the 1889s we witnessed two teams qualify for the finals of the English FA Cup consecutively when it became apparent that Manchester City had won the Premier League diadem four times consecutively. Manchester City’s FA Cup final against Manchester United enters the annals of the English game at dusk inside the magnificent Wembley Stadium in England.
No clash in dates with any other domestic games nor was there any postponement because one of the venues had been earmarked at short notice for non-football competitions. Dates, venues, and other logistics towards making the biggest two soccer competitions in England a spectacle to behold had been programmed since last season. Need I state here that the two competitions’ commencement dates and when they end have already been known? No club alters the timetable of the English game except in very rare cases. Even at that new dates are announced quickly and the postponed games are played as agreed. No club takes the game to the equivalent of a Sports Minister in England to adjudicate. Never. A clear case of government interference. Not so in Nigeria where we are experts in peddling influence.
It is the reason the Premier League runs its calendar from the first week of August to the middle of May the following year religiously. The import of this adherence to the competition’s calendar is that it affords the players ample time to rest their limbs and treat nagging injuries that require urgent surgery before the new season begins. It is also the reason there are two transfer windows for European clubs to strengthen their squads by buying good players bearing in mind the pitfalls of the PPF rules.
In Nigeria, we pay lip service to such adherence to the stipulated calendar, making the Nigeria Premier League perhaps the only domestic league in the world still in session, though the Spanish La Liga ends this weekend with Real Madrid proud winners for the 36th time.
Back to the English game. Tottenham’s manager Ange Postecoglou was stunned to his bone marrow listening to Spurs’ fans urging their players to lose a crucial home game to the eventual Premier League winners. The manager couldn’t stomach the crass madness exhibited by the fans, he walked towards them to express his utter disbelief and disgust over the unsportsmanlike conduct.
“That’s probably the worst experience I’ve had as a football manager in a game,” Postecoglou said.
“Once I realised I’d got it wrong in terms of what the atmosphere was going to be like and what people felt, I got a real anxiety within me of, ‘What happens if Man City, the best team in the world, who were disposing of teams quite easily in the lead-up, what if we play as well as we can but they beat us 5-0?’
“I got cold sweats thinking about people questioning my integrity and the people I work with. Even watching the game back, there was a comment on the commentary, ‘Oh, Tottenham are having a real go here’.
The pomp and ceremony associated with the events around the last day of the league explains why the corporate world fall over each other to associate their brands and services with the beautiful game in England. The last day of the EPL was such that Arsenal could dethrone the eventual winners Manchester City if the defending champions didn’t beat West Ham at the Etihad. Pundits had correctly tipped Arsenal to beat Everton at the Emirates Stadium in the same way as the champions.
But Arsenal fans prayed fervently for Man City to slip off with many people wishing that Arsenal dethrones the champions. As the parlance goes ”if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” It didn’t happen. Arsenal and Man City won their last games. Yet, what struck this writer, not for the first time, was the ease with which the organisers prepared themselves for the trophy presentation to the eventual winners. It didn’t matter if the two matches were played in different cities. This was a spectacle that was worthy to behold as the two games in Manchester and London had their twists and turns for 98 minutes, extra time inclusive.
Man City players enjoyed the ambiance around the stadium while celebrating with the trophy. Of course, sponsors of the league enjoyed more than a fair share of exposures from the telecast of the game and pictures and visuals captured by photographers and television cameras folks present at the stadium last Sunday.
What stood the English game out on Sunday was the ease with which fans at one venue followed happenings at venues whose results affected the fortunes positively or negatively. In fact watching the Man City game against the Hammers, you could see if and when a goal was scored at the stadium where Gunners at a time the game were trailing by a deflected goal. Most fans were glued to their phones or other communication gadgets streaming the games of their interest.
One wonders how NFF chieftains sell the domestic league to intended firms when matches are not live on match day or could be streamed online to be abreast with the trends and results anywhere in the world. The interconnectivity during such periods is massive and companies would want to leverage their goods and services on such platforms. Imagine the figures companies would be willing to splash for such global exposure of their products to their targeted audience – the masses.
Not so in Nigeria because of parochial interests. Playing the league without television coverage amounts to winking in the dark. Perhaps, the NFF could instruct all the teams to record their matches and submit a copy of the tapes to the NFF’s secretariat for them to watch and give judgment where there is the need for such an action. The NFF President Ibrahim Gusau
could reach out to all the parties to arrive at a workable template for television rights that would take cognisance of the interests of the true owners of the business. Court!
