History never forgets. I’ve been reading recently in the media what appears to be a summersault on submissions concerning the beautiful game here by some soccer analysts. It was appropriate for them in the past to mouth the slogan questioning why it has been difficult for the Nigerian game to be in tandem with what operates seamlessly in other climes. They threw barbs, and stones and spared no harsh word in castigating those hitherto tagged as enemies of our football. Now the music has changed. Paralysed analyses litter the media by these turncoats.
It is okay for everyone to air his or her views on any issue in the country as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution. I don’t grudge anyone on that. What remains constant in any debate are the pros and cons of the issues. They are sacrosanct and must be looked at critically no matter whose ox is gored. No one should shout crucify them today and in another breath shout messiah to the same wrongdoings simply because the odds are stacked in their favour. This is unacceptable.
When the Chairman of the NPFL Gbenga Otolorin Elegbeleye announced August 26 as the commencement date for the 2023/2024 domestic league, I wrote here that the date won’t stand the test of time knowing the forces that dictate how the game should be administered here, rightly or wrongly. Elegbeleye went through all the processes for approval and got their mandates by endorsing the August 26 commencement date.
But with less than 11 days to kickoff, the drumbeats have changed starting with the change of date for the draws from August 17 to August 24. This change according to a statement was done at the behest of Club Owners who suggested that the draws and AGA should be on the same day. I don’t want to discuss Club Owners, please. Vintage Nigeria football where the unseen hands in the game get things done their way.
All kinds of reasons have been given to explain why the draws had to be shifted and made to hold with the NPFL’s Annual General Assembly. Unfortunately, one of the reasons is that it would help the clubs save money. Really! Is this how it is done in other climes for those who mouth that they have been to places? Kept in the dark is the exact date for the commencement date of the 38-match full league system.
Isn’t this one of the reasons the corporate world can’t key into our football because the organisers don’t understand the dynamics of having a calendar of the game’s activities? Blue-chip companies who have a craving for sports sponsorship would be disillusioned to associate their products or services with a project whose organisers can’t fix dates for their activities and abide with them religiously.
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Serious companies plan their budgets annually because the money used in these firms isn’t theirs. Shareholders own the monies in these firms and need to be convinced why the money should be used for every event. Shareholders are interested in the profit margins made by their firms not losses.
Imagine those traders across the country who have believed the August 26 date and placed orders on products emblazoned with the domestic league’s insignias and the old date would be going through with days to the earlier kickoff. The petty traders and small entrepreneurs would have taken loans or sold plots of land and staked properties to source the purchase of these goods. Not only have they incurred debts, many of them would suffer different forms of illnesses and God helping those who could develop stroke when their creditors come calling in their homes.
Yearly, our representatives in the CAF inter-club competitions complain of the lack of matches to keep their players in competitive form as the reason for their early exits. Why the NFF executive board members have turned deaf ears to this disturbing trend beats one’s imagination. It doesn’t matter if the country’s representatives take turns in being eliminated from every round of the competitions. What insults our sensibilities is the yearly explanation after the teams must have crashed out that we would do something and nothing gets done about it.
Our young boys are wasting away in Europe in the name of seeking to play professional football. That is okay. But they never follow the designated paths simply because we like doing things our way. All it takes for anyone to be a football coach or manager is to bounce the ball in any open field. Kids will swarm the place like bees.
Sadly, some of these venues of fraud are located in schools, yet principals and parents don’t bother to find out if such coaches or managers are recognised under the law.
The absence of a regulatory body at the grassroots level has now been exploited by crooks who deceive our young boys, only to destroy their lives. For the lucky ones who get to sign any soccer contract, what comes to them are peanuts, if they eventually make it big in such countries, these coaches earn more than they get.
Examples abound about tales of our boys who excelled quarrelling with their managers when it dawns on them that they can stand on their own. The pitiable fact is that even national team coaches in the country are guilty.
These meddlesome interlopers in our soccer won’t stop crippling the game here. Each time they lose out, they strive to destroy it. Sadly, we have refused to relate with the State governors who fund these teams during crises. I know that some governors who are tired of those who run their clubs stifle them of cash to see if these acolytes of political bigwigs will quit. They never do. It’s alien in our clime. These interlopers come up with different nomenclature seeking relevance. I don’t like to disparage the domestic league because sports, albeit football, is one of the few platforms where Nigeria can be ranked with world-beaters. For a league which commenced as a professional body in 1990 to still be in diapers, says a lot about how the game has been systematically killed with most of the participants – the players and coaches left in abject poverty.
The countries that excel in sporting events have systems which guarantee enough funds for the sportsmen and sportswomen to compete with the best such as tax rebates on sport-friendly firms, lotteries, and businesses owned by wealthy nationals who know what is in such a sponsorship that benefits them by the sitting government. Such financial taxes are spelt out to companies and wealthy citizens after agreements have been reached. These cast-in-stone policies are binding to all the parties to such an extent that breaches are adequately addressed to allow either of the parties to seek redress in court.
It should worry the current NFF executive committee members that no Nigerian club has won a continental trophy in their six years reign. Are the members waiting for the time when state governors would decline to sponsor their clubs because of their ill-preparedness? The way things are going, a year would come where there would be winners but no sponsors with our opponents coming to Nigeria to walk over our teams.
The beauty of this organised method of funding is it gives all the concerned sponsors enough time to schedule their commitments to their boards in order to provide for them in the yearly budgets for the duration of the contractual agreements with reliant government parastatals for the exercise. We must scout for administrators who will see sports as the culmination of science and business at the helm of each sport to institute templates that will further challenge our athletes to be professional in their assignments.
When you criticise a system here, those who should effect the changes resort to cheap talk of the writer doing the bidding of his paymaster. But like a sore thumb, the problems keep hitting our all-knowing officials in the face. Would the league begin effectively on September 9? You tell me.
