Those who like to jump at pyrrhic victories associated with the domestic game have gone into hiding. They have covered the faces which have been smeared with rotten eggs in shame. Serves them right. The price for hypocrisy. When our flag bearers to the continental clubs’ competition conquered those minor nations (forgive me for the arrogance and disrespect), the media was awash with different forms of paralysed analysis about the effects of the undertakers’ contributions to the game’s growth. So, when the CFA inter-club last round pitched Nigerian teams against their North African counterparts, this writer shouted eureka – a Daniel has come to judgment, seemingly.

Kwara United FC of Ilorin, Plateau United of Jos and indeed, Rivers United of Port Harcourt by the fixtures of the last round had more than slippery poles to climb except they wanted to deceive themselves. The odds were blatantly against the three teams, especially as the domestic league games in Nigeria had not begun. It isn’t rocket science. We, therefore, need to jumpstart the Nigeria league by the second week of November with at least a title sponsor and a broadcast rights sponsor where our matches can be shown live on television. Enough of the rhetoric.

The clear statement from the defeats inflicted on o Rivers United, Kwara United and Plateau is that ours is second best to other leagues in Africa. Hurting/ Yes. Rivers United and Plateau’s demotion to the second tier of CAF’s inter-clubs represents how badly run the domestic league is here. Unfortunately, 13 club owners met with the new NFF President and the owners made many damning confessions which could have attracted sanctions, had the new sheriff known the implication of what the turncoat club owners agreed that they did.

In the communiqué released by the federation’s Media  Director Ademola Olajire which hasn’t been refuted, the club owners admitted on Monday that:’”(2) The Club Owners collectively maintained that the NPFL has suffered severe problems in the past six years and identified the following areas: (a) Lack of Sponsorship, (b) No TV Broadcast, (c) Poor Officiating, (d) Insufficient Funding, (d) Lack of Match Integrity, (e) Poor remuneration of match officials and huge indebtedness in this area, (f) Matches won on the basis of Highest Bidder, (g) Poor Infrastructure, (h) Incompetent Administrators and (i) No prize money for winners and failure to honour same, et cetera.

In saner climes, last year’s league competition would have been cancelled and those who organised it would be made to face the wrath of the laws as provided for by FIFA’s and CAF’s ethics committees. The admittance by the club owners under subsection (f) that ” matches were won on the basis of highest bidder” is tantamount to match-fixing.  So, there is a confirmation that matches were bought and sold? By who? Who does that?

Aside from it being a grievous crime, it also is a criminal offence which FIFA and CAF frown at. Those who ran the competition should also be made to face the laws of the land for bringing the game to disrepute. Taking the communiqué point by point, Sani Ahmed Toro, who was the pioneer secretary of the professional league in its infancy in 1990 remarked that the outcome of the meeting was a “serious indictment on the part of previous NFF, LMC, the clubs, the club owners and the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA).”

Do we really care about the reputation of the country in the eyes of the world? Guess what, the club owners had the temerity to make suggestions as to how the league should be run.  Why didn’t they say so in the last dispensation? Who are they to set the rules of the game if we truly know what we are doing? The new NFF board should swallow their pride and inaugurate the IMC last next week Wednesday. They also need to sit with the honourable Sports Minister Sunday Dare to discuss the possibility of getting seed money of between N50 million and n100 million, which must be refundable to avoid pilfering.

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I pity my friend Barrister Christopher Green. He must have tried to remedy a very bad situation. Mention must be made of the Rivers State governor Barrister Nyesom Wike for raising the stakes by promising each player $40,000 if they had crossed the Wydad FC of Morocco hurdle. Your Excellency sir, thank you. Let’s do it again next year before you hand over the government.

Interestingly, Rivers United and Plateau United have dropped into the CAF Confederation Cup with Rivers United hosting the first leg tie against El Nasr Benghazi of Libya on November 2 inside the Adokie Amiesimaka Stadium, Port Harcourt. The return leg holds on  November 9, at a yet-to-be-named venue.

Dear reader, did I hear you say another North African nation? If I know Barrister Green very well, he would ensure that the mistakes of the CAF Champions League are not repeated starting with the issue of teaching the players what to do to avoid being provoked into getting a red card as it happened in the 6-0 loss to Wydad Casablanca FC Morocco last Sunday. It is a playoff setting. Rivers United, according to reports were undone by their temperamental goalkeeper. He is definitely out of the two-legged tie, with the lessons of his being red carded starring the faces of his colleagues to avert a recurrence.

Yes, the Libyans are North African but would find in Rivers United a very tough nut to crack. My advice to Green is to challenge the players to whip  El Nasr Benghazi of Libya by at least five goals on November 2 in Garden City. The focus on during the return leg in Benghazi should be to score an early goal which would count for two when the goals aggregates are being analysed in the event of a tie in both legs’ results. This writer won’t be surprised if Rivers United qualifies from this fixture, having learned their lesson from the Wydad debacle.

The overwhelming reaction to Plateau’s exit was hinged on poor officiating with a downloaded video recording of the game showing clearly how unfairly the Plateau boys from Jos were cheated. A second bite at the cherry will come with vital details of how to grab the ticket though they won’t play against the Libyans at the Tin City, unlike Rivers United.

Plateau United confronts Al Akhdar FC of Libya in the first leg game on November 2 inside the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja with the second leg’s venue yet to be disclosed. The game would be played on November 9. It is expected that Nigeria’s senior men’s soccer side Super Eagles Head Coach Jose Peseiro would be with the Plateau side over the two matches, having also accompanied them to the ill-fated second leg tie in which the Nigerians were allegedly cheated by the match referee with video recordings being streamed in the social media.

OF significant importance is the fact that Nigeria’s football is being put into question with yet another North African nation. Can Rivers United and Plateau United win the battle of supremacy by beating the Libyan sides home and away to make the game beautiful here? Or would both countries win one fixture each? Or would the Libyan sides beat their Nigerian counterparts to confirm the fact that what the Moroccans was an attestation to the fact that North African football has grown geometrically while Nigeria’s is on the slide to the abyss?

Or would Plateau United and Rivers United remedy the situation by qualifying ahead of the Libyan counterparts? One thing is clear, one of the aforementioned options would play out itself. Whichever option plays out, may the best two clubs qualify for the good of the game in Africa?

One would have thought that the holocaust years when the North Africans were a nightmare to Nigerian clubs were gone or is it creeping back?

The hue and cry associated with the NFF elections have melted like ice cream left under the scorching sun. Nothing changed about the pattern in which the winners emerged -predictable winners with unseen hands dictating how candidates got elected. How do you contest an election and score zero votes? Who does that? How can you be in an election hall, and get one vote in spite of how you reached out to fellow voters? It becomes laughable when a voter representing a zone doesn’t vote for the candidate chosen from his area despite firm directives from the henchmen in such states instructing the person who to vote for.

Former Nigeria international goalkeeper Peterside Idah described all that transpired on election day as a crime scene littered with foreign currencies meant to induce voters. Idah attested to the fact that he witnessed the shenanigans, including his teasers whether to demand a refund of what he gave an unnamed voter to appreciate him.  The Bishop whose church is in South  Africa gives credence to the crime scene as he referenced his situation on election day. Clearly thrown into the lagoon was the competence of the candidates. In other climes, each aspirant would have been subjected to a session probably on television a few hours before the election where they would unveil their plans for the federation since the major target for any federation member is to source cash independent of governments’ to run their programmes.

Many people argue that all electoral exercises are expensive and riddled with bizarre situations for which in the larger world people lose their lives. It shouldn’t be so for sports. Sport is a leveller. Sports are measured by picking the best in a fair and square manner—no undue advantage. Aspirants ought to have been judged by well they campaigned around their zones, leaving the final day o the day before the election for them to face Nigerians on national television telling what they would do to improve the game with timelines which we would hold them accountable.

The scene of the crime was so shameful when those who offered bribes as high as between $5,000 and $10,000 went after those who didn’t vote for them and a refund of their cash. Interesting. They executed this despicable exercise by hiring thugs or roughnecks including having to prevent parked cars with theirs to stop their debtors from escaping as early as 4 am.  Shame! Culprits have gone away unnoticed with most of them carrying their shoulders in ‘buga’ fashion, having collected a large chunk of what they had used to induce voters. I hope we would know who to hold when these urchins turn around tomorrow to molest voters for not giving what is their due. Brigand starts from crime scenes such as what happened last weekend in Benin City.

The other takeaway from the election in Edo state is that the tripod on which the administration of Amaju Melvin Pinnick has been destroyed, leaving in its wake no real new members but throwing forward silent members of the past administration and those rubbing shoulders with members around the federation in the past eight years.

Have we heard the last about all the things that happened before, during and after the NFF election? Certainly not. What happened to the law issues before the voting was held? Stories in the media suggest that the federation’s operating officer may be on his way out for insolence to his bosses with word rife that he is busy trying to get former government officials to plead for him. Expectedly, a deluge of congratulatory messages from the high and mighty to the winners at a time one would have wished that the newly elected members converge on Abuja to do their first meeting to take stock of what they would be facing in the next four years.

A visit to the honourable sports minister would have helped to open a new vista for them by listening to what he expects from them to have a seamless relationship for the good of the game. A workable relationship between the ministry chiefs and the NFF officials would help the game develop at the heights expected from a big country like Nigeria. It doesn’t make any sense for the government to fund the federation’s programmes yet can’t be told how much cash was expended.

The federation’s new members should ensure that their books are audited quarterly to douse suspicion of sharp practices. Nothing stops such audit reports to be made public for transparency’s sake. Tales of the unexpected don’t encourage investors to associate their brands or services with bodies enmeshed in controversies bothering on corrupt practices. Indeed, football is no longer a sport but a big business which can only achieve its aims and objectives when all doubts are cleared.

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The majority of those on the new board did a few things with the last board while others were key members in the federation’s transactions in the last dispensation and know where the shoe pinches. Debts of astronomical proportion predate the Amaju Pinnick administration largely because of the federal government’s fiscal budget regime. Perhaps, this new board and the minister can collaborate in such a way that the government can reconsider a different budget approach as we have in other developed sporting countries. Ibrahim Gusua cannot feign ignorance of the legal issues the body faces with every new administration. Therefore, he should seize the meeting with the minister to assure him of his administration’s readiness to implement the recommendations of the 10-Year development plan for Nigeria’s football since they sought views from all strata of the country’s football fraternity before arriving at the document which has been commended by everyone who has painstakingly read its contents.

Gusau, therefore, should ensure that there is synergy between the federation and the domestic leagues across the country.  The people who run the domestic league think that corporate sponsorship is like buying a lottery ticket from any hawker on the streets before the draws are made. These league organisers feel that they can knock on sponsors’ doors anytime they are ready, forgetting that cash from the corporate world is investors’ contributions to such companies’ fiscal outlays.

No investor throws their money on any project without critical analysis of what is in such investments for them. The investor also needs to know how viable the new interests are in the open market.

Budgets are done based on companies’ fiscal year, making it imperative on those who want to showcase their wares on such platforms should come with strong credentials aside from being credible business concerns. In the business world, things are planned. No firm would do business with any venture without a market plan for them to evaluate such a venture’s true financial strength. Every kobo spent is discussed before putting it in the annual budget.

We should allow the private sector to come in to set the tone with entrepreneurial skills, then it becomes a huge business. Imagine what it means if every week people go into the stadium to enjoy a good match; the impact and effervescent effect on the nation. Consider those who transport the fans, who sell to the fans, produce wares for the fans, produce the tickets, and the telephone companies that would gain from it, especially in this telecommunication age, where if you are in the stadium, you want to tweet it, take pictures and post on the social media, it is all so complex. That is why we are saying that sports are a catalyst to recover from the economic recession that the country is experiencing. But that is if we understand it.

Nigeria’s elite class in football started in 1990, with no record of how much it has realised from inter and intra-club transfers. Nobody can tell any investor how much the league realises from merchandising, television rights, etc things are done by the hunch with each group choosing what appeals to its fancy. The resultant effect is that 30 years on, we cannot appropriately lay our hands on an authentic audited account of the league that would stand the tests of time. How can the league’s accounts be audited without telling the stakeholders what the body generated from intra and inter-club transfers? The interesting thing about these two components is that one is done in foreign currencies.

So, governors, please ask your club chairmen where the cash over the years has been kept.

Watching England’s senior soccer side, the Three Lions struggle against the German Machine of Germany in the pulsating 3-3 draw at Wembley Stadium in England, it was obvious that the problem with the Three Lions wasn’t the absence of quality players but the refusal of the English manager Gareth Southgate to listen to superior advice. Yes, it is true that the buck stops on his table when things go awry. Yet, toying with some of the technical suggestions from some England internationals could have helped him in the choice of players to prosecute games. The English Premier League is the most competitive competition in the world. It is, therefore, a travesty for the Three Lions to be relegated from the elite class of the Nations League. It is also a paradox of sorts when the Germans who play in the Premier League scored for Germany on the night.

Coaches are the same. They have this disturbing fixation on how they want their teams to play and those who should be central to whatever formations tickle their fancies. It is, therefore, no surprise that Southgate has stuck to fumbling Manchester United defender Michael Maguire in his three-man defensive formation in spite of the fact that Maguire warms the Red Devils’ bench recently. The Three Lions have functional attacking options except for the fact that Southgate stubbornly sticks to the old order rather than field players who have distinguished themselves playing for other English Premier League sides.

For instance, Southgate had no business fielding Saka in the second half against the Germans given Saka’s spectacular performances playing for the current Premier League leaders, Arsenal FC of England. One other person who should have reinvigorated the Three Lions’ seeming counter-attacking formation given his form for Liverpool is Trent Alexander-Arnold, with theories from analysts, especially former England internationals that have ranged from the banal – “he’s great going forward, maybe not so much going backwards.” – to the bizarre – a “Championship-level defender” who should “retire from international duty” – it seems everyone has a hot take on the 23-year-old from West Derby.

Something you cannot take away from the English game are their theorists’ and experts’ records which are spot on and highly informative when it comes to justifying why a particular player deserves the nod in the Three Lions over the others.

According to records illustrated in the Liverpool Echo: ” First, some facts presented without comment: Liverpool had the best defensive record in Europe’s top five leagues the last term; Alexander-Arnold made 32 Premier League appearances in 2021/22; Jurgen Klopp’s side have conceded the fewest goals in three of the last four full top-flight campaigns and Alexander-Arnold has averaged 34 games a season during that time; since 2019, the defender has won every major honour available to an English club; he has made 235 appearances for Liverpool before his 24th birthday; he is the second-youngest player to start three Champions League finals; he was shortlisted for the 2022 Ballon d’Or in August; he has been named in the PFA Team of the Year in three of the last four seasons; he was named in the Champions League Team of the Season by UEFA’S Technical Observer Panel in May.” Well, Southgate knows best especially since he knows where the shoes pinch in his squad.

This writer has chosen to use the English template to illustrate how the problems associated with the Nigeria game which is lying prostrate in the 774 Local Government Areas in the country can be resolved, only if our soccer administrators have the political will to elevate the game. Unlike the English, the country is populated with players who were wooed to play for Nigeria by previous administrators at a time our domestic game was being suffocated by bizarre policies from mindless league organisers around the country.

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Happily, we are been made to believe that the new dawn beckons soon with the appointment of former domestic league highest goals scorer Davidson  Owumi  as   the  league   body’s  Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Owumi isn’t a stranger in the league’s administration having guided Enugu Rangers to lift the league trophy under the tutelage of Coach Imama Amamkpabo. In fact, Owumi got so close to being the chairman of the league board until the high-wired politics around the game at the level made him quit with a promise to back at the helms of the game in the future. How prophetic were those words made years ago by visionary Davidson Owumi?

Owumi has taken some very enterprising decisions which have left the old order in the trash bins and raised hopes for a truly brighter future. He is insisting on full compliance with the club licensing policy by the participating teams by the beginning of the 2022/2023 league season. Stadium inspections are being done using members of staff of the league told to gauge pitches to be approved using the type of facilities which are found at the Nest of Champions Stadium in Uyo as the benchmark. What it simply means is that many stadia in the country won’t host matches for the 2022/2023 season except if something drastic is done to such clubs’ playing venues.

Under the club licensing policy, Owumi has vowed to ensure that no club is registered except all the players’, coaches’ and ancillary staff’s wages and allowances are paid to date. These key men of the leagues would no longer have to resort to self-help to get debtor clubs to pay their outstanding wages and allowances running into eight years and above—no hyperbole about clubs’ level of indebtedness. Owumi is also doing everything within his power to get the league to fund itself such that claims owed the clubs by the now defunct league bard running in billions are paid in instalments.

This sounds like music to the ears but would soon happen to go by Owumi’s antecedents in club administration which he hopes to bring to bear on the league. Clubs should be made to tell us their worth given the dynamic nature of the sports business when we try to compare it to what obtains in other climes.

Owumi’s big cross which he bears would be to return the Nigerian league to the television. It is laughable that the Nigerian league isn’t on television where other countries are. The new season should begin with a credible title sponsor of the domestic game to be unveiled with pomp and ceremony on the broadcast station’s network live across the globe. Soccer is a contact sport which requires quality medical policy which should easily handle emergencies such as we has in penultimate weekend.

Such medical policy should have ambulances fitted with world class amenities such that when the patient is taken to the official hospital of the league, treatment should commence immediately without the hindrance of wanting to know who would pay for the patient’s medications because he or she is a mere spectator. The issue of having insurance policy for the league shouldn’t be done by the clubs. The league management should get the official insurer of the league who should have the capacity and financial muscle to handle tricky incidents. It is most unfair watching former footballers walking with pains with of them unable to leave their houses due to injuries sustained in the course of their careers.

The league is a money spinner for those countries whose administrators know how to effectively utilise the marketing windows of the game. What would cost companies to pick up rights to a very well run league such as official water of the league instead of the unhealthy sachet o water which our players drink during and after matches. How about a company buying the rights of official beverage of the league?

Television rights is the key to fortune for any serious league to thrive. According to a report published in the Daily Mail last week, it reported that: ” While the top of the table sees some eye-watering figures paid out to City and Liverpool, the Premier League also made history at the bottom end of the table in 2021-22.

”Norwich – who won just five top-flight matches, lost 26 and who conceded 84 goals last season – became the first team in the league’s history to earn £100m in prize money despite finishing bottom of the table.

”They earned the same facility fees as the other two teams who joined them in being relegated to the Championship – Burnley and Watford – but their domestic and international merit payments were not as high due to their final position.  Truth be told.

Sometimes this writer’s mind runs wild wondering if those who run our football clubs, its administration and the national body understand what it entails. At other times, one is puzzled over how our soccer administrators internalise what they see in saner climes with a view of reproducing them. Are they really cut out for the job or are they just loafers whose stock in trade is to flash their complimentary cards as our soccer body’s chieftains but not bothered about the enormous tasks that go with such offices? Will you blame them? Most times they are lackeys of mindless politicians who open the doors of our soccer to their lickspittles as rewards for their patronage.

Our soccer is bereft of new ideas – largely because most people who administer the game see it as a status symbol and not as a platform to celebrate excellence. Their immediate target on being appointed is to aspire into international bodies and be seen junketing in several countries peddling influences without thinking about the dynamics of the game or how to influence the local league or what to bring back to our domestic game when they return home. For them, the estacodes, trips, and fancy tourism sightseeing adventures are worth more than the state of the football administration in Nigeria.

The Nigerian league might just be one of the few leagues in the world not in tandem with the European league which serve as markers – and by extension a far cry from comparison. So, you ask which model is the Nigeria game taking after – if our boys can’t participate in – the European leagues’ transfer markets? The inter and intra clubs’ transfers in Europe are money spinners with both the clubs’ owners and the government waiting for its end in order to project for the next seasons. This is planning, a key index for growth, but which is missing here. In the elite league in England, that is the Premier League, the clubs spent £2.01 billion on the movement of players among the 20 teams and their counterparts in other parts of the world.

Investors don’t need to dig deep to get figures which could challenge them to identify their goods or services with European clubs.  It was recently reported that Manchester United’s annual financial report shows that they spent £24.7million on getting rid of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick over the last year. The club recorded a net loss of £115.5million for the financial year up to June 30, 2022, compared with £92.2million in 2021. It isn’t rocket science. Clubs routinely disclose their profit and loss sheets to the public. Of course, it helps the government to make regulatory deductions. No stories. With these figures, shareholders know the questions to ask management during Annual General Meetings (AGM) unlike in Nigeria where 80 per cent of the clubs are run with government cash. And as always Government cash is free money.

According to a Daily Mail report penultimate Friday:” The Premier League have revealed champions Manchester City won a staggering £153million in prize money last season. Pep Guardiola’s men won their fourth title in five seasons in 2021-22 after a dramatic final day which saw them come from two goals down to beat Aston Villa and pip Liverpool to the crown.

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”Finishing first saw City earn a UK merit payment – which is divided according to final league position – of nearly £34m as well as a further £7m internationally.

These figures were released by those who run the league. No conflicts with the English FA chiefs who were too busy churning out new policies to reinvigorate the game in England. Those who run the league in England didn’t have to wait until eternity to divulge the figures of the transfer market – another key index for growth – transparency. No wonder a huge scramble by investors all over the world to have a bite of the cherry that the English game represents. Sponsorships and broadcast rights are the most significant channels of funding in soccer but can only be achieved when the leadership is transparent and accountable towards revenues generated from the private sector. However, in Nigeria, no one is asking questions about the competence of the ‘gladiators’ seeking to lead and run our football administration for the next four years. It’s amusing when someone talks about getting all the sponsorship and broadcasting rights yet the league remains the same – safe for the leadership of Remo Stars led by Kunle Soname.

Of course, strict adherence to the club licensing rules would help energise the game to make it beautiful, once again. No successful country’s football is judged by a large number of foreign-based players in all their national teams but by the presence of home-grown talents who return to the grassroots to celebrate their feats which further emboldened aspiring ones at the grassroots to aspire for podium appearances.

The grassroots is the foundation of a nation’s football. It is the nursery where talents are discovered, nurtured and exposed through competitions to the world. In fact, some countries monitor the talents as they move from nursery to stardom with a few others encouraging those interested to either embrace coaching or combine soccer with updating their knowledge by going to school. The dearth of talents in Nigeria can be traced to the absence of competitions to keep the boys and girls busy in their quest to reach the zenith of their careers.

Without nurseries, coaching becomes a big problem since there won’t be a basis for them to ventilate their skills to the boys and girls. What most serious-minded countries do is to establish schools where coaches are discovered, trained and retrained on the new tricks of the game. They don’t wait until such coaches have retired from active soccer before recruiting them as coaches. All these components provide the kind of templates into which the future of such a country’s soccer is reviewed vigorously for the game’s good. How can I forget the regular income coming from allowing visitors, mostly supporters of the club tour the massive complexes for a fee truly reflect how excited these tourists are after the tour of the facilities? How about the pictures that they take which remind them of dream expeditions? Of course, the fantasy that they walked around places which they only saw on television?

Of significant interest is the job opportunities existing in a properly administered domestic league starting with the 60 players per club in a league format of 20 teams, as we have it in the English Game. And to imagine that these Premier League clubs have cadet teams for the boys and a full retinue of girls across all cadre involved in weekly games like their senior men’s teams tells the level of job opportunities available in soccer for those who know what it entails.  Add this figure to the number of grounds men and women, caterers, ball boys, cleaners, drivers, doctors, nurses, laundry men and other ancillary staff who make things work for the clubs as a business. How about the people who hawk their wares outside the stadium on match days? Not forgetting those who sell the tickets, mufflers, the club’s jerseys and the volume of business which goes on before, during and after matches at home stadium in the adjoining centres?  Match days are always like a bazaar for those with businesses in the neighbourhood. With a jaded structure such as ours where officials are reluctant to embrace the tenets of club licensing, it would be extremely difficult for anyone to know the league’s worth. A league where players, coaches and ancillary are being owed wages close to six seasons makes it absolutely impossible to determine how is spent in the transfer periods.

A league  where those being owed wages resort to self-help to get a chunk of what is theirs tells the story of helplessness for those who want to do genuine business with the league. No investor would engage its brands or services with a debt-ridden organisation that finds it difficult to pay its staff monthly.

The European leagues across the board have similarities which give teeth to the fact that templates are universal and not respectful of clubs or personalities. Not so in Nigeria. Man-know-man is the bane of everything in the country. Otherwise, the things the Europeans do seamlessly can easily be done here except for the fact those employed in critical aspects of our daily lives are upstarts -not qualified to perform such roles.

The world stood still last week as doctors battled to save the life of a Cadiz fan in medical distress at the stands during a game. The match was held for one hour with all concerns targeted at the fan recovering from his very critical situation. The game didn’t resume at anyone’s whims and caprices until the fan regained consciousness and was taken to the hospital for further treatment. The game eventually ended 4-0 to Barcelona but the result wasn’t the most important thing the safety of the fan.

Medical facilities needed to save his life were top notch with the personnel to rated, interestingly provided by the two teams on the pitch and the host club’s medical facilities. The doctors battling to save the life of the unconscious fan didn’t lack anything. They didn’t need to call the hospital for an ambulance nor did they need to get anyone to provide enough gas filled with oxygen. They could easily have done an operation right on the host team’s premises if that was what the dying fan needed to regain consciousness. Players from both sides looked on in concern and Cadiz goalkeeper Conan Ledesma could be seen sprinting across the pitch with a defibrillator towards the incident. Everyone understood the situation and you could tell they had a level of information on how to react to all situations even beyond the game of football.

The movement of the fan from the stadium to the hospital was brisk largely because La  Liga had an official hospital which took care of such emergencies without necessarily asking the fan or his relations to pay deposits or sureties as it would have happened in Nigeria, largely because those who run our leagues are serial debtors. Of course, such facilities don’t exist in our league. Such essential aspects of the league which could affect anyone in the stadium don’t form part of what should be prioritised by our league organisers.

The security personnel took charge, first by condoning the place to give enough room for movement of the medical crew as they reached out for other things needed. Only those who had medical functions or roles to do there could be seen shuttling. Don’t remind me about what would have happened if that fan was inside any stadium in Nigeria. What stood as a sore thumb was the presence of a structured medical system which allowed everyone to save the fan without further risks. No buck passing. The system provided for such emergencies.

No acts of sabotage. Everyone’s role was specified. No overlaps. The hospital’s personnel knew what was coming to them since the medical teams in the stadium kept in touch with their counterparts in the designated hospital about everything they did. What struck me was that bills for such emergencies were borne by the organisers of the league. Possibly under the health insurance schemes.

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The future doesn’t look bright for the beautiful game if the same characters are allowed to run the operations of the league. A league without an official television rights holder is a circus, which should not be taken seriously. Such leagues obviously cannot produce national team players since they wouldn’t want their careers truncated through the organisers’ ineptitude. A league without title sponsors has no business with the corporate world – it has unwittingly become a commercial failure. A league without an official insurance company for the clubs, coaches, and players can best be likened to celebrating mediocrity.

A domestic league without a regimented calendar can’t produce new stars, since they only know when the season begins without knowing when it would end.  We have in Nigeria, a league season without end, hence such contraptions as abridged leagues or regional league competition, as a few purists are advocating for. How does anyone expect the league to produce new talents for the Super Eagles when the competition only starts when the organisers are pressurised to do so?

Our league organisers should use this period to get all the clubs to clear their debts, with a firm warning not to register any team with outstanding for the new season. It doesn’t matter if only six teams comply with the directive. It leaves room for the eligible ones in the lower cadre to get promoted. This idea of glossing over the rules enshrined in the league’s constitution won’t make the game run here as a business, even though state governors use their teams to settle their lackeys.

In trying to remodel the local league, our organisers embarked on several trips to different European nations carrying with them their lickspittles instead of critical stakeholders who would be using the models directly. The so-called knowledge acquired by those lickspittles who have no direct bearing on the operations of the league is lost, making those dropped from such trips less knowledgeable and a potential threat to the league’s operations.

To justify such jamboree trips, the organisers ensured that those foreigners came into the country to see how we make a mockery of league organisation here. These foreigners come here to meet a new set of people who are directly involved in the daily activities of the league but who never made the trips to their countries. They immediately knew our problems but would rather allow us to take them through what they would be exposed to. It didn’t take a second thought for them to write us off as unserious when they returned to their countries. It is the reason all the trips to Europe by our organisers and their lackeys have not rubbed off on the game’s administration. Let alone its development. What we have is an arrested development setting where the undertakers have refused to vacate their positions for more knowledgeable people to take charge.

Our league organisers were in European countries (names withheld), how has that affected the Nigerian league? How much of what obtains in the European leagues do we have here? Our organisers belong to several committees in WAFU, CAF, and FIFA, what can they point at as things they have brought back home? We still have players wearing nameless shirts during matches. We still have match officials using slates with instructions written with chalks to make substitutions in the course of matches. Referees’ safety is in the hands of the clubs, yet we want the league to be attractive. How would we have a good league when most of the pitches are easily soaked in rain with other despicable, good enough for cattle grazing?

A top football man in Nigeria confronted this writer with the theory of what the league runs with, insisting that the organisers chose the English or was it the Spanish model? He wasn’t sure. It explained clearly the tardy handling of the domestic game’s administration here. This writer confronted another soccer chief to explain how the game is run here without representation on the board as we have in other climes. Our football board isn’t represented by a club owner whereas the game itself is about association football nurtured by the clubs in the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country.

A situation where the game’s hierarchy in Nigeria meets and the clubs have no genuine representation is unacceptable. Those who threw into this mess should correct the flaw. When the contraption they forced on us started, its chairman wasn’t allowed to participate in the NFF meetings. In this dispensation, the so-called head now runs things in the federation.

One rule different interpretations. Rules are drawn at the whims and caprices of a privileged few. Little wonder the league began without the body’s congress and it doesn’t matter. What is sacrosanct is the game is being played irrespective of oddities.

This letter to the honourable sports minister Sunday Dare which this writer has placed in public space is deliberate. Dare takes delight in unraveling puzzles.  It defines who the minister is. He dislikes sycophants – an ideas man who scribbles down important talking points each time he engages in any discussion. He wants to learn and consults widely. The minister is also a veracious reader of good literature. I will be failing as a brother to the minister if I don’t tell him that a viable domestic league is better than the formation of the ‘best’ collection of NFF executive board members. The reason is simple. Each succeeding NFF executive board has been worse than the ones they replaced. Minister sir, step back from this upcoming election. Fix the domestic league. Don’t create a lacuna that would be exploited by losers of the NFF election. It is the main reason the domestic league died under the watch of someone who lost out in the high-wire politics that characterized the 2015 electoral exercise in Warri.

Again, the reasons for this misnomer rests in the fact that those who lost out in the new election return to the trenches to cause all manner of skirmishes such that the new board members spend three-quarters of their four-year fighting those who were voted out of office, but who suddenly became experts in football administration

Indeed, there aren’t more than five states in Nigeria where the game is played regularly. In fact,  some ex-internationals who have refused to pick one person to challenge others for the NFF Presidency seat have shown that they don’t understand what they are fighting for. I will be very surprised if any of the ex-internationals in the race for the NFF Presidency finishes among the top four.

We are going back to the Warri scenario where the headship of the NPFL was given to someone as compensation not what entails in the rule. It marked the beginning of the rot in the domestic league where those in charge do things as if the game belongs to them. They brazenly make pronouncements which seem to address certain problems of the league only to melt away like ice cream left under the scorching sun. Sadly, nobody dares interrogate all their failed promises because they have their itchy hands inside the till. The minister should start the process of sacking the league board. Then the clubs in the NPFL should commence the process of conducting the elections for the league board. On no account should an outsider become chairman of the league. That slot belongs to one of the chairmen of the 20 league clubs. History will remember Sunday Dare as the man who fixed the domestic game right if the NPFL election is put on the front burner.

It is important to remind observers of the game that this contraption of league organisation arose from the brave effort of former sports minister Retired Colonel Musa Mohammed, who didn’t see the rationale in putting the country’s domestic league structure in the hands of one or two staff, with its office space looking dingy and not befitting to show visitors, especially investors.

Musa Mohammed craved for a local league that could be the best in Africa, at least with good administration whose watchword would be to run the place as a business concern, not a platform for the boys to further corrupt the system, leaving the coaches, players and officials on the lurch in abject penury. The former minister couldn’t understand how players and coaches were leaving in droves to Europe and indeed other African nations in search of greener. For Musa Mohammed, the star trek to African clubs was an indictment of the game’s administration considering that the Nigeria league was the Mecca for other Africans in the past. The minister wanted an immediate restoration of the old order but with people who could think outside the box, not those waiting to spend the government’s yearly subvention.

For Musa, change was necessary and he set out by constituting a 12-man committee to redefine the way the Nigeria league should be run – as a business devoid of the bottlenecks at NFA and in his ministry.

Musa’s 12-man Interim Management League Board was rejected by those masquerading as stakeholders, with the majority of them being club owners who don’t pay a dime for such teams to strive. Musa wasn’t prepared to do business with the so-called club owners and stakeholders, who surrendered and accepted an admixture of their list and the ministers. The NFA board as they were then known kicked but the minister stuck to his guns alluding to Act 101 which gave him the power to intervene in any matter in the place. He saw his intervention as one which would change the way the game was being run.

Before the inauguration of the IMLB, clubs won matches through board room points, many of such outside-the-field practices fueled by facts provided by those running the competition to those who could afford the cost of such information. Of course with poor documentation, some of these clubs were not informed about the players who should miss such matches.

Until the formation of the ILMB, clubs paid referees’ emoluments, housed them, fed them in the hotels and brought them to the match venues and out of it. This practice was fraught with fraudulent tendencies which the clubs exploited greatly. Buoyant clubs seized the day and spoiled the match officials with good ‘hospitality’, leaving the match arbiters with no other option than to ensure such teams win such games at all costs. Stubborn referees were beaten groggy by such clubs’ irate fans.

Until the formation of the ILMB, departmental heads of the league department assigned their favoured referees to many matches with some handling particular teams’ away games. The result of such a dastardly act was that such teams never lost such matches. In fact, as the league drew nearer to its end, such matches ended in victories for the away teams at the board room, largely because such games are stalemated by the home fans who smell a rat in handling their matches. We had a preponderance of teams playing outside their designated venues as punishment. Many cannot forget how Kwara United FC of Ilorin was relegated in 1999 because the club’s management had issues with the Nigerian referees.

Irate fans of Kwara United went haywire in that match against Lobi Stars after the Makurdi side scored the opening goal in the opening minutes of the encounter. In the ensuing fracas, Late Col Dogo Yabilsu who was the centre referee in that match was beaten to a stupor and had to be smuggled out of the stadium disguised as a woman.

Unfortunately for Kwara United, Col Yabilsu was the then chairman of the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA). League followers knew that only a miracle would have stopped the Afonja Warriors from being relegated. The rest they say is history as Kwara United was banished to Calabar where they expectedly didn’t win any match before going on relegation.

ILMB started by stopping the practice where clubs paid referees. This move reduced the level of contact between referees and the clubs. The ILMB paid referees’ indemnities into their accounts before match days. The board paid for the hotels. Match commissioners ensured that games didn’t begin except all the requirements specified for hosting matches are met, including the number of security operatives (50) at that time.

But the biggest fillip the ILMB brought to the league organisation was the live television coverage deal it struck with African Independent Television (AIT), which deployed its Outstation Broadcast (OB) vans to beam matches to Nigerians wherever they were. AIT’s live coverage of matches helped to embolden referees to be fair, knowing that any untoward acts by clubs or their touts would be captured by the television cameras. In fact, referees were punished for poor handling of matches after reviewing the weekend’s matches.

Soon, a title sponsor was secured, making it much easier for the organisers to run their operations seamlessly. The league had Glo as title sponsors and Super Sports as Broadcast right owners.

Each Club was given N10 million from title rights, and N3 to N4 million from TV rights. Depending on how many Televised games your clubs feature in. Lucozade Sports was one of the partners,  and each club had almost a hundred cartons per season. Marine lnsurance covered the medical aspects of the league. You could attend any of their hospitals spread all over the country with a little fee.

The finer lines of Nigeria soccer would be defined by how well the domestic league is organised, the league’s adherence to the tenets of the label club licensing rule, and the existence of timelines for the set goals and objectives of the competition itself. If it means running the league with between five to 12 teams participating this fresh season, why not? There can’t be a league if there are no players and coaches in the employment of teams to fight for honours for each team.

It says a lot about the rudderless platforms in which the league in the country is organised such that Nigeria is the only nation in the world whose 2021/2022 season hasn’t ended with the AITEO Cup competition still at the semi-finals stage.

Nigeria will lose the advantage gained in having our league run in tandem with other leagues. Our domestic clubs will suffer when other leagues’ transfer windows open. The good ones in our league will sneak out for trials and deplete their teams. Teams will be weakened by the absence of their stars and quality of play. Of course, if the fans are dissatisfied with what they see, they won’t return to watch subsequent matches.

For the records, the AITEO Cup is the country’s oldest football competition hitherto known as the Challenge Cup, a lever because of its thrills and frills coupled with its shocking results.

It is heartbreaking to note that the Challenge Cup which was a major platform where all manner of teams rolled up their stockings to give the established clubs a run for their monies. The argument can be held that it is the duty of the NFF to organise the Challenge Cup. But the flipside to this argument is to ask where the football clubs in the country are and what exactly the NFF Second Vice President says about the domestic clubs and how engaged they are with local competitions.

With the delay, our players with good potential have lost two transfer windows to seek for greener pastures, as they say, due to the ineptitude of those who organise the domestic league. Should such people be allowed to remain in the place? Certainly not.  When our league ends sometime in September, countries with clear-sighted administrators would be deep in the domestic games to allow our boys to train with them.

Players and coaches will be roaming the cities, condemned to playing the game in their neighbourhoods, particularly on school grounds with improvised facilities. Shylock agents will be prancing waiting to lure the weak-hearted among them into slavish contracts outside the country. These shylocks need not wait for long because the players would soon be hungry if they aren’t already.

The real causalities are the country’s representatives at the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) inter-club competitions. Those who will also feel the pang are the country’s flag bearers in CAF and FIFA U-20, U-23 and Super Eagles because our boys will be match rusty.

The pre-season media blitz which we have seen in Europe till September 1, when the transfer window closed as it concerns players’ movements heightens the awareness among clubs’ fans, such that everyone is eager to know what to expect and make frantic bids to secure their tickets in a request to watch their idols.

The fans’ debates help to convince the business sector to inject cash into the European leagues, knowing that they can connect with the masses to sell their products and services seamlessly. This crucial marketing activity rubs off handsomely on the clubs. It also creates competition among brands which eventually think of windows where they can identify with the global brand- soccer. It is difficult in Nigeria because those who own the property prefer to use middlemen not because they are better bargainers, but because they can strike shady deals with them easily. This trend continues because we have failed to probe funds pumped into sports. This lapse has emboldened others to fill their pockets and impoverish the players and coaches, who should benefit the most.

Globally, club football thrives on several marketing windows that increase the cash flow for all the participants. Such windows are title sponsorship rights, television rights,  official insurers, official kitting firms, official beverage firms, official water firms, agencies responsible for the billboards and other boards that carry the message of the game to the public.

These windows serve as one of the ways of generating revenue. Cash realised from these marketing ventures is declared at the end of the season, such that clubs know what to expect from each window to drive their transfer sales even before their proprietors pull out their chequebooks. I laugh when people say that our clubs are cash-strapped. I wonder if anyone has asked those who manage government clubs how much they make from selling our players in inter and intra-club transfers? Do we really care? If we do, many people who run these clubs will be in jail. We need this therapy to instil the fear of God in our administrators.

The sale of players in the transfer period is a bonanza for many clubs that groom rookies and a drain on the purse for those who thrive on splashing the cash on new players annually. Sport isn’t leisure anymore. It is a serious business used by countries which appreciate its power to pull the youth away from social vices, to change people’s perception of their countries, as a recreation platform for its citizens and as a veritable means for its populace to improve their health.

Sport originates from the people through the communities with the products of such an enterprise emerging as ambassadors for the country in international competitions. All that the government does is to provide the enabling environment for the industry to thrive. Since the ultimate target of the corporate world is the citizen, it follows therefore that sport gets the needed fillip for growth when the athletes become big stars in the world. This seamless setting also ensures that only technocrats are recruited to drive the process, such that it is free of scams and controversies that would chase away the blue-chip industries which are ready to provide the financial support for growth. Our administrators blame the media for highlighting the flaws of establishments, forgetting that there isn’t another way to report the truth. With a dysfunctional league spanning 32 years, we are left with lazy option of looking towards Europe in search of players, including the invitation of an European-based U-17 women’s player. What a pity. No nurseries for identifying, training and gradual exposure to competitions, there won’t growth.

Nigeria shouldn’t be parading teams for international competitions with 29 foreign-based Super Eagles, with only a few homegrown here. No wonder when the country’s anthem is being sung before kickoff, they all keep mute. They aren’t propelled by the wordings of an anthem they can’t recite. It explains the slowness with which they prosecute matches. Check out the way other countries sing along when their anthems are being played and the way each player jumps high as if to reach the skies on the spot as if they have been injected with super adrenalin. It is always the difference between Nigerian teams and our opponents. It means a lot to this writer when our international players are ashamed of wearing wristbands of Nigeria’s green-white-green before our matches.

Each time I watch Sadio Mane and other Africans wearing wristbands in their countries’ colours, I always feel the tinge of nationalism they want to project about their countries. Papa Bouba Diop – Senegal legend and former Portsmouth and Fulham midfielder – died at the age of 42 and Liverpool’s spitting cobra, El Hadji Diouf wore the country’s colours around their wrists, not forgetting how they celebrated when they won trophies everywhere they played in Europe.

Do our administrators not see or observe this trend among Africans in Europe? This culture is engrained in the hearts and minds of other nationals right from their youth days. I wonder if ours don’t see what others are doing? Food for thought.