Category: Ade Ojeikere

SPORTS is the biggest Public Relations (PR) tool that any government can use to change people’s perception of its citizenry. Unfortunately, the jackboot era effectively used sporting activities to douse tension in the country and to perpetuate their stay in government. You need to walk along the streets whenever Nigeria has a sporting activity and see how the streets would be desolate. You would only realise that people are indoors from the thunderous roars from different houses when our sports ambassadors conquer their opponents. The descriptions of how the feats happened are compelling, especially those delivered by the native speakers of the languages in the country.

Indeed, the glorious moments are recaptured in the offices, restaurants, hotels, markets etc not forgetting the crowd of free readers at the vendors’ stands doing post-match analysis the next day(s) as if they watched the events live. On such competition days, caution is thrown to the winds as if what qualifies you to walk into any area or houses where the games were been shown live was a jersey or eagerness to watch the game and not to cause mischief. You need to witness the mass rush out of homes in search of where games are been watched with generators anytime the Discos take electricity for those who don’t have an alternative source of power. Those who don’t worry themselves to watch such pyrrhic moments live using the interrupted electricity, knowing the antecedents of NEPA, only realise the crowded setting either at halftime or after the victories.

Companies, rich individuals, banks, big blue firms’ players etc who cast an indulgent on suggestions and even several meetings to identify with these sportsmen and women prior to the games would now task the corporate affairs units to see how they key into the arrangements been paid to receive the victorious contingents. My favourite friend Mike Itemuagbor used to describe such acts as ambush marketing which is true, especially for the few firms that put their cash behind such contingents. These ambush marketing groups steal the thunder of those brands which identified with the sports or sport from inception.

Soon ambushing firms would start announcing fabulous monetary rewards to these athletes who sneaked out of this country in batches praying for such successes as we saw in Birmingham. Mention ought to be made of the Director of Sports in MFM Godwin Enakhena for the role he played between the female wrestler Odunayo Adekuorouye and the owner of MFM. Certainly, Dr Daniel Olukoya is a key stakeholder in wrestling for the listening ears he gave. Enakhena served as the leeway towards making Adekuorouye the wrestler she is today, forget about what happened to her at the last Olympic Games. You win some, lose some.

According to Enakhena: ”Odunayo Adekuorouye’s path and that of Dr Daniel Olukoya, the General Overseer of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries crossed when she was about to give up on wrestling because she couldn’t attend competitions. Someone introduced her to me as a member of MFM in Akure and I took her to the GO who told her he was adopting her as her daughter. Dr Olukoya has lived up to that by paying for 90% of her training tours outside Nigeria and to competitions. Dr Olukoya sent her to a Canadian university where he pays everything from school fees to other needs.”

It is exciting to hear that President Muhammadu Buhari would meet with the winning girls and the rest of the contingent where the President would reward the sportsmen and women with national honours and cash gifts. I would be further excited if Sports Minister Sunday Dare invites the blue-chip companies’ chief executives, the bank managers, oil and gas magnates and prominent Nigerians with deep pockets to hear what the President has dividends on their investment in sports. Assurances coming from the President on such a symbolic occasion would be taken seriously, especially since some of the stakeholders in these businesses would be watching and later reading the news in the media almost immediately in their various homes. Yes, sports is big business and a growing concern.

The first lesson from the proposed interaction with President Buhari is if his administration has the political will to make sports a big business, which inevitably will create the platforms to reduce unemployment. The second lesson is the need to cultivate business concerns to embrace sports, but with a caveat -transparency and accountability. Equally, important would be to get the President to accept that there was the need to create an enabling environment for business concerns to key into sports patronage, first to change the way it is run in Nigeria and then to get Nigerians to know that sports help increase the country’s G.D.P as seen in other climes. We need to also underline the essence of sports as a viable socio-economic tool for youth development, nation building and instilling the core value of social justice.

For Nigeria to achieve excellence and meet the objective requirement for the rapid development of our sports industry, then we must broaden the finance base of the industry and create the right conditions for private sector funding and investment in sports. But, the government must lead this movement by doing away with the fiscal budgets and introducing a sports budget that takes care of the annual, biannual and quarterly sports competitions such as the World Cup, the Olympics, Commonwealth Games etc without qualms. President Buhari should use the meeting with our heroes and heroines to announce his administration’s seed money for sports to set the pace for others to follow.  Mr President, Nigerians love sports. They just need to be challenged.

Read Also: Govt disbands Transport ministry task force

Sport is big deal. It unites nations and enchants people. Besides, it has a global appeal, pulling fans and sponsors into a unique force that impacts positively on businesses-and health. These positives can best be evaluated when the government has a template that makes it possible for businesses and philanthropists to key into the nation’s vision for sports.

Governments of sports-loving nations entice businesses with relief packages, such as tax rebates on their investments in sports. Given sports’ global appeal, governments effectively utilise the platform as their public relations tool to change people’s perceptions of their entities.

Grassroots development can be actualised through the hosting of international and continental sporting events. Most countries use these big competitions to woo the blue-chip industries to identify with sports. Besides, these competitions open up the hinterland with the facilities constructed creating jobs in the locality. The facilities would attract the villagers to learn the games and, inadvertently, improves their health.

Big sports competitions generate revenue, create jobs, improve financial bases and provide the best opportunity for foreigners to have first-hand interaction with Nigerians. Such competitions improve tourism, a sure money spinner. Need I state the benefit that business concerns will gain from the volume of foreign exchange during such competitions?

It, therefore, aches to note that we have hosted big competitions in the past and have been unable to convince the corporate world about the gains of such events largely because no government has bothered to ask the organisers what went down and what we gained – this is what economists call Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA). Facilities built for such competitions are rotting away. In some cases, the equipment has been vandalised with nobody made to pay for it.

The talents are here; what we lack is a sports culture that is anchored on a calendar that sports-friendly blue-chip companies can incorporate into their fiscal budgets.

Our sports facilities must be maintained. Those old ones should be upgraded to provide the platform for local and international competitions for our athletes.

The minister should ensure that the National Institute for Sports (NIS) performs like its contemporaries elsewhere. It should be upgraded to function as the training ground for our coaches. It should also serve as the brain-box of our sports where policies are implemented.

FOOTBALL is back. The fans are back. The excitement is back. The rave reviews and commentaries are back. Wives don’t have to wait endlessly for their husbands to return home. Daddy hurries back to stay with the family to watch the most exciting of the European Leagues – The Premier League. Some other wives know where their husbands are – with the boys in a known friend’s house. Many homes are either divided among the teams or cajoled by the leader of the house, most times to back his team. For such daddies, no room for his family members to pick their clubs when he calls the shot at home.

But the real fun resides in those homes where Daddy’s club is Arsenal. The first son backs Chelsea with the mother tacitly identifying with her son – daddy mustn’t know. The daughter likes Manchester United while the last child prefers Manchester City. The house is on fire anytime any of these teams lose. It gets worse if Daddy’s club loses to the kids’ clubs. No peace for Daddy. He takes the jokes on his chin, knowing that his days hover around the corner – preferably the next game. Real fun and the families are now united by the most beautiful game in the world – football. Some call it soccer. Others refer to it as the round leather game. Whichever name you choose to call it.

This new season is different because the fans would throng the stadia to watch their favourite teams which would invariably increase their revenues from the gate-takings not forgetting revenue from merchandising, television rights and other avenues for recouping cash spent on big buys ahead of the new season. Last season was a marketing disaster for all the clubs with many of them going bankrupt while others are still ruing the loss of revenue, which hopeful could be recouped this year, barring a fourth surge of the Covid-19 pandemic. Players, coaches, backroom staff, and anyone connected with the teams’ operations have taken mighty salary cuts to stay afloat. Clubs such as Liverpool depend a lot on the energy from their teeming fans at the stands to propel them to victory. Surely one of the beneficiaries of the return of the fans to the stadia.

The English game is anchored on the tremendous media coverage by the English laced with records of events with the television stations anchoring their football shows with legends of the game sharing their experiences and educating viewers on controversial decisions. There is never a dull moment watching the English. This 2022/2023 season is expected to be one of the best given the way big teams strengthened their squads with quality players. They were careful in picking who they wanted not just crowding the camp with big stars as in the past.

The 2022/2023 season is quite significant considering the fact it would be stopped middle of November to allow the Qatar 2022 World Cup to hold without distraction. Indeed, the World Cup lurking around the corner has focused players who aren’t regulars in their teams to seek shirts in clubs where they are sure of regular first-team jerseys. Players with one year left to the contracts have refused to extend theirs with the present clubs, preferring to wait for the end of the season when they can walk away as free agents. But clubs with such players are looking to make sure ageing stars are redundant by recruiting better and younger players to make them realise their services are no longer required.

For Manchester United, these are interesting times given the headache they are having with Cristiano Ronaldo. A year ago, it was celebration time for fans of the Red Devils when Ronaldo rejoined the club from Juventus, the Old Lady side. Ronaldo justified his return with some outstanding displays, scoring goals with aplomb much to the consternation of critics who thought he was a spent force. Of course, Ronaldo is a class act, meaning he thrives best among the big boys in the elite category of the European clubs’ competition, largely known as the UEFA Champions league. And with the Red Devils not playing in the Champions League, Ronaldo has told his employers at Old Trafford that his time at the Theatre of Dreams was over.

As a prized gem whose stock is known to all clubs, Manchester United’s management would prefer to go down fighting to convince Ronaldo to remain with them than to watch helplessly as the football icon walks away leaving hands on their cheeks, sulking. Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag is unhappy with Ronaldo and has labelled his conduct so far as unacceptable after the Portuguese superstar left Sunday’s friendly early. Interestingly, Ronaldo has given Manchester United until Sunday to decide his future. Whatever that means.

Should Ronaldo be allowed to keep the Red Devils too long on their knees than to allow him to satisfy himself? No way. And former Red Devil, Louis Saha  addressed the issues arising from Ronaldo’s seeming truancy when he told SKYBET in an interview that: ”In some way, from Cristiano Ronaldo’s point of view it’s a bit unrealistic to ask now a club of this size to adapt to him and his dream.

”Even last year, I’m sorry but the magic could have happened and everything could have gone well and they won the Champions League and the Premier League and there we go, he could say that he could stay because he had participated in that. It was unrealistic that just his arrival would have changed all this.

”Asking that again after a poor season and maybe not great transfer market business in his view, I don’t understand how dramatic it is to change and to do all those things. I think that last year he had been in Juventus but they hadn’t won the Champions League,” Saha told SKYBET.

So, what does Ronaldo want beyond playing in the Champions League? He should be told pointedly that his time is coming to an end and that he needs to be more circumspect in the way he conducts himself in the twilight of his illustrious career.

Ronaldo played on Thursday at the Red Devils’ Carrington training base and boss ten Hag has a big decision on his hands.

The Dutchman may have to start Ronaldo, despite his lack of pre-season training with fellow forward Anthony Martial reportedly set to miss their opening game of the season due to injury, according to THE ATHLETIC.

The Frenchman, who notched three goals on tour, suffered a minor hamstring problem and the timing of his return is unclear. Whether he starts or not, Ronaldo is still hoping to leave Old Trafford in the coming weeks.

Whereas Ronaldo’s headache is for everyone to ponder over, their noisy neighbours, Manchester City have sold off Raheem Sterling to Chelsea, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal at a cost of more than £100million without qualms, Haaland has made champions Man City even stronger, Liverpool’s attack has evolved with Darwin while Ten Hag embarks on his huge Man United rebuild. Chelsea has begun direct talks with Barcelona over Frenkie de Jong as the Blues attempt to gazump Manchester United, while Man City turn attention to Sergio Gomez. This year’s transfer transactions are bursting on their seams with fans hopeful for a fight to the finish race across all the leagues this season.

Chelsea’s captain Cesar Azpilicueta’s continuous stay at Stamford Bridge has been secured with the Spaniard signing a new two-year deal on Thursday to ease Thomas Tuchel’s defensive crisis, leaving  Barcelona boss Xavi on the lurch having been dealt a huge blow to his Nou Camp rebuilding plans. Leicester rejected Chelsea’s opening £60m bid for centre-back Wesley Fofana. In fact, the Foxes fear Blues are prepared to break the £80m world record fee Man United paid them for Harry Maguire to sign the Frenchman.

No doubt Chelsea has missed the deep pockets of their former owner, who was ready to splash the cash for any player who could bring glory to the Blues during matches.

WHENEVER a player falls on the field in a soccer game in Europe, the response rate of the medics is breath-taking with no room for guesswork. All the apparatuses needed for the fallen star are with the nearest medical person including oxygen. When the situation looks critical, the player is given enough space by bystanders while those whose duty it is to restore the player’s life take charge.

Evacuation of the player from the pitch is always dignifying with the ambulances driven close to the point where the player can be taken. It must be stated all the ambulances are fitted with state-of-art facilities which would improve the conditions of the players before getting to the hospital or theatres if that is where he needs to be taken to. The first aid the players get on the pitch sets the stage for how successful the exercise would be. If such a player requires oxygen, it is fitted right there on the pitch.

No player or should I say teammate accompanies such colleague out of the pitch. The injured is wheeled into the ambulance and driven away. Not so in Nigeria. The crowd around the fallen player is enough to suffocate him. the methods of reviving him are laughable. When those around the injured player are not fanning with dingy jerseys, they are pouring sachet of pure water on him while some others are pressing the player’s chest for someone gasping for breath.

Evacuating the patient inside the ambulance from the stadium isn’t a guesswork thing. As soon as the situation occurred inside the stadium, the medical crew which provided first aid for the patient opened a line of communication between them and the designated hospital. Doctors and nurses in the hospital have been debriefed about all that transpired during the first aid sessions. This synergy between the two medic crews helps those in the hospital to commence work to save the patient (player). This helps to reduce the mortality rates from such incidents at the stadia.

What it clearly shows is that the league organisers and the designated hospitals have a business understanding to attend to all medical cases arising from incidents at the stadia. This agreement isn’t hinged on verbal talks. All the parties in the agreement sit to jaw-jaw, with everyone coming to the negotiation tables with their terms and objections. The differences arising from the discussions are addressed before a binding document is signed. This working document makes defaulters liable in terms of breaches. No half measures. Those selected came from transparent bidding processes among renowned hospitals in the country.

With such an arrangement, the patient doesn’t get to the hospital and is confronted with the cheap talk of money to commence treatment. No idiotic suggestions of lack of oxygen, no light, etc. The patient is wheeled into the theatre if that is what he or she needs immediately. Surgery is done, and photographs of the patient on his or her beds are awash on the internet with get well messages from around the world for such a patient. No ceremonies and no tales of the unexpected having met all the conditions enshrined in the club licensing book. How many clubs in Nigeria can meet all the conditions of club licensing? We can with the right people running our league. But we won’t because we think it is the Nigerian way to subvert all that is good in the country – nothing good works in Nigeria.

Sometime last year, a player (name withheld because the matter is in court) died on the pitch with pictures of the timid manner in which they tried to revive him. We saw one man pressing the player who was gasping for breath on his chest. We saw others fanning him with their stinking shirts soaked with sweat from the game. At the same time, another helper tried to force a spoon through his mouth. How can we forget those who wasted sachets of pure water on the dying player? All these efforts were futile since those who sought to save the player’s life were not taught the rudiments of such an act – which is essentially first aid.

The player may have died because the ambulance at the stadium, which was meant to carry him to the hospital had a malfunctioning battery. The ambulance had to be pushed around for it to start. No dice. The player was eventually taken to the hospital in the ambulance of the state governor’s convoy. Help came late, pity.

Did the league organisers learn anything from the death of the player being discussed above?  No. After all, they showcased all the pictures from venues with club proprietors, match referees, and commissioner(s) standing beside ambulances to show them that they were compliant only after a player died.

Facets of the league’s organogram work in other climes because of the existing business frameworks which define who gets what and who doesn’t for proper accountability. There are no jobs for the boys. Recruitment into key positions of the leagues is strategic and duly run by professionals with rich business resume acquired over time. Rather than address the issue of telling us which hospitals in the six geo-political zones in the country they are partners with, the media is awash with the so-called television coverage on our telephone sets. Can a fan watch the match on his or her handsets travelling through the Lagos to Benin City highways? No way. Established radio stations and television stations can’t bet on that. Of what use is it then? Should we not know the official hospitals for the league? Or have the organisers left this critical task to club owners who owe their players, coaches, and officials their wages running into years?

What those celebrating the so-called television coverage don’t understand is that fans prefer to watch the matches live at the stadia or in viewing centres where they try to recreate the stadium setting than to sit alone like the selfish Chief Executives who always see things from the myopic prisms, not from the world view. Indeed, the talk that the European matches dwarf ours is cheap. If we had thinking league organisers, they ought to have scheduled the NPFL games on days when there aren’t European matches and see if the fans won’t throng the stadia in droves.

One would have suggested shifting the games to the night periods but the lack of electricity in the country would be a major obstacle. Don’t ask me dear reader if the match venues have generating sets to run the stadia during matches? In a country where we pay lip service to maintenance, it wouldn’t come as surprise if the stadium is thrown into pitch darkness by a malfunctioning generating set deep into matches. How can this writer forget the 1979 FA Cup finals between Bendel Insurance of Benin and Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) inside the National Stadium, Sure-Lere, Lagos where the stadium’s lights were switched off after the Ibadan side beat Bendel 2-1. What followed in the stampede is better imagined.

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?

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.

AT last, the end to the most notorious league in the world is nigh. Would it be appropriate for the organisers of a seemingly dead league to celebrate a season fraught with all kinds of abnormalities including the spilling of blood from injuries suffered b visiting teams, not forgetting matches referees who are beaten by thugs loyal to the home team’s management? It is the reason nobody gets caught after each carnage. Only one of the beasts threatening the domestic league, a high-profile official of one of the teams was caught on video. He has been banned for two years with the organisers reluctant to drag him to the police for prosecution in court.

Attempts are being made to make the troubled look beautiful despite the inglorious season where matches were abandoned with glee only to be played the next day – a few times for between six to 12 minutes all under the guise that the organisers have barred boardroom points.  What this decision means is that if three players or more can have their heads broken by urchins who most times are the home team’s supporters, and the game abandoned with between three to 15 minutes, such a bloody game must be completed the next morning. At other times such incident-ridden games are rescheduled on the orders of the disciplinary committee, the federation or the league organisers as the cases may demand.

How do you celebrate the end of a season without television beaming this weekend’s matches live across the country? Or would the organisers run to Supersports to beam the game live? If the answer to this question is yes, then we need to ask the organisers what informed their decision not to renew the contract to beam matches live with Supersport lapsed? Have they suddenly realised their folly?

In this better-forgotten league season which ends on Sunday, a game was played with 38 minutes of extra time arising from an injury to the goalkeeper. Rather than the organisers shut their traps they offered laughable reasons in spite of the fact the video of the game showed the assistant referee indicating that the extra time had gone on for 38 minutes. How can any goalkeeper hold the game for 38 minutes when he could easily have been taken out of the pitch for treatment? What were other delays in the game that could have necessitated such long periods?

What do you about a league where the centre referees come up with two results? In order to save his life including those of them away, the referee calls the result before the home team as 1-0 despite signalling for the away side’s equaliser which caused mayhem. The referee gets home and writes that he gave that 1-0 result to save his life and that of his colleagues. Now that he was home, he wrote to say that the goal which he signalled as good was indeed the equaliser. It meant that the game ended 1-1, not 1-0. Don’t ask me please what the organisers’ verdict was.

Whose duty is it to invite the security operatives to match venues? Or are waiting for us to remove corpses from match venues like we have seen at Sambisa forest before we take the desired decisions to disband the organising body and stop the league until all the flaws are corrected? God forbid, if souls are lost, would these late decisions bring them back to life? No way. Why are we so cursed to always act late to issues which concern lives and properties?

What do you say of a league where it took the death of a player for the organisers to differentiate between a hearse (those cars used to carry caskets to the burial grounds) which clubs cheaply brought to the stadium as an ambulance instead of the real ambulance fitted with the right medical equipment? Isn’t strange that the organisers in the last decades haven’t been able to get debtor clubs to pay their players, coaches and officials before the commencement of a new season? Don’t the organisers know that without the players, coaches and officials there won’t be a league competition? Would it shock you, dear reader, to hear that there is a rule in the competition’s Holy Grail which mandates the organisers not to register any club still indebted to its players, coaches and officials until such debts are paid in full?

Even the simplest of tasks in getting the elite clubs to run youth teams which could also play league games either a day before the main teams’ or earlier on the same pitch their seniors use. This is how it is done in Europe. It explains the ease with which these European clubs replace their ageing stars or those burdened by injuries. These youth teams help the countries by having them pick players for their age-grade teams just as it provides the country’s Football Associations (FAs) data to plan the new discoveries’ future.

With the deluge of very poor pitches across the country, one wonders what those who religiously inspect stadia before a new season begins always see that they can’t report as unacceptable to the organisers? It is rocket science to recognise a bad pitch and proscribe it until the owners do the right things before they can play games there? Isn’t it a shame that our domestic league clubs are still battling with club licensing issues? What a pity!

A league without live television coverage amount to winking in the dark. It is the reason our clubs can’t be a variable enterprise. Need I list out what many clubs in football-crazy nations get from television rights at the end of every season?

Nothing seems to be new because these same characters run the competition yearly. Those who run the domestic game have a penchant for signing MOUs. They enjoy listening to themselves. Those with dissenting views don’t know what it takes to run the game. But this writer won’t give up until the right personnel is put in place. Rather than secure an official television station for the competition to help curb violence and carnage, the organisers watched in awe as the previous league television station stopped the contract.

A proactive league board would have accepted what the previous television sponsor offered and secured an arrangement where others could either show the games live or record them to be shown later. Sadly, some of these battered referees don’t record their ordeal in their match reports, except such scenes happen in parts of the country where the media presence can overwhelm the influence of desperate club managers, owners, and, sometimes, sports commissioners.

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. Unfortunately, the supply chain, which is the domestic league has been lying prostrate, no thanks to the maladministration by a few all-knowing people who won’t quit, even with the broken piece roofs piercing through their heads.

Not having the league on television amounts to winking in the dark. Our players who want to play in Europe need tapes of games where they excelled to showcase their talents. Agents can easily present these clips to clubs seeking the services of young players. Watching the league on television would encourage Nigerians to go to match venues to see their favourite teams and get autographs of their favourite players. This would also increase gate earnings which automatically improves earnings to make the clubs more solvent.

CAN the Super Eagles be said to have found their form simply because they beat Sao Tome and Principe 10-0 in Morocco? Wouldn’t it be appropriate to wait a bit for other matches to be played to see if truly what happened in Morocco wasn’t a flash in the pan? Was the performance enough to celebrate after the World Cup ache? Certainly yes because we haven’t seen the Eagles play with such guts and guile. We have watched the Eagles take their feet off the pedals in matches where they did very well in the first half. Need I remind you, dear readers of the game between Nigeria and Sierra Leone played at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin City? Eagles threw away a four-goal advantage only to draw the match at 4-4. A few fans in Benin showed the players what such a woeful outing it was to them by venting their spleen. This is not to say that what those beasts in Benin did isn’t condemnable. After all, in football, you either win, lose or draw matches. Just one result per game and this is determined by how well you have played for each game.

The 10-0 pummelling only showed that the country abounds with talents to deliver the right results with a little patience. All that a coach needs to do in the Eagles is abhor the greed to make money and pick only the best players to wear the Green-white-Green shirt. Indeed, the Eagles weren’t enterprising against the Leone Stars of Sierra Leone inside the MKO Abiola Stadium, although many a fan complained about the stadium’s playing pitch which looked like a pig sty.

The 10-0 battering raised hopes about a brighter future provided the Portuguese manager sustains his hunger for glory by combing the nooks and crannies of the country to fish out good talents. If the Portuguese manager creates a competitive setting in the Eagles camp, a new dawn beckons which would make our Golden era of 1994 and 1996 look like a child’s play. One only hopes that the 10-0 stuff was the result of the two international friendly games which Nigeria played against Mexico in Dallas and New Jersey against Ecuador. Nigeria lost 2-1 to Mexico in Dallas and 1-0 defeat to Ecuador in New Jersey. Both countries qualified for the Qatar 2022 World Cup scheduled to hold in November.

The players would be ready to fight for shirts in camp if they know that there would be fairness on the manager’s part in terms of selecting those to play the matches. What this simply means is for the Portuguese to draw a marker stating clearly what qualifies any player to play for Nigeria in the international game. What this presupposes is that a lot of those in the team have overstayed their welcome and should be shown the exit door by organising testimonial games to pull them out of the team with pomp and ceremony.

Playing for the Super Eagles is the platform to showcase excellence not to exhibit mediocrity which has been the bane of the team recently. All kinds of players are invited to the team, Such all comers’ tendencies lower the team’s standards soonest. Nigeria’s next two matches are the doubleheaders against Guinea-Bissau on September 19 in either Lagos or Abuja, although subterranean moves are on to get the team to play in Uyo and in Guinea Bissau on September 26.

Beating Guinea Bissau could be banana peel if we choose to rest on our oars having thrashed Sao Tome and Principe. We must cut short the celebration and think of the handicapped position in the group where we only get to play against the big boys of Africa such as Cameroon, Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria etc only at the competition proper in Cote d’ Ivoire next year. One only hopes that chieftains of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) have recognised this challenge which could be plugged by organising Grade A international friendly games for the Eagles against those tough European countries going to the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

NFF chiefs must ensure that the Super Eagles are involved in quality matches to make up for the low-quality opposition in Nigeria’s group leading to the 2023  Africa Cup of Nations slated to hold in Ivory Coast. And this should start by getting the Eagles to be fully engaged with the game during all the FIFA free windows for playing international friendly matches. It won’t be out of place if Nigeria plays friendly games against some of the African countries that have qualified for the Qatar 2022 World Cup to gauge the Eagles’ form against formidable opponents.

“About the 10-0 win? Yes, it’s good. It is better for us [to get] three points, which is more important to us,” the 62-year-old stated after the resounding win.

“Of course, I want to improve our organisation on the field because we didn’t train too much with them. We want to introduce our ideas – this match was good because they tried to follow our organisation, our style, and our ideas.

“I am also happy because the guys who entered during the match did as well as those players who started.”

Dear Peseiro, Nigerians are not amused over the 10-0 battering of Sao Tome, considering their ranking at FIFA. Nigerians have chosen to mock the Eagles than applaud them with the pain of missing out on the Qatar 2022 World Cup the plank of their bitterness and pains.  here are some of the comments.

“This is not fair, I suggest countries like Sao Tome, Eswatini, Lesotho, South Africa, San Marino, Andorra, Moldova, India, Cyprus, Bulgaria, China, North Korea and Belarus should start their own tournament called Fifa World Weakest Teams Cup. They’re on the same level of play,” responded Elliott Wako GC.

“If only [William] Troost-Ekong had played. He would have equalised all the ten goals for Sao Tome. Sao Tome players are like ‘wishing you quick recovery,” commented Mathew Abara.

“The Super Eagles punished Sao Tome for sins they know nothing about,” said Danny Boy.

“10 goals for Nigeria. More than Manchester United’s goal difference in the Premier League” observed Muhammad Kachallah Gombe.

“This team should be in the same group with my country South Sudan so that we taste a win,” said Malou Thiong.

Some fans wondered where this clinical Nigeria was during the 2022 World Cup playoff which the Super Eagles lost to Ghana on away goals following a 1-1 draw in Abuja.

“They would have proved themselves against Ghana, congratulations anyway but if we can’t beat Ghana forget it. Nigeria is like England, over hyping is their problem,” said Orange Don Austyne.

“Nigeria scored Sao Tome 10 nil today [Monday]? Finally gotten their level. It still won’t send them to Qatar,” replied Adam Ukasha Original King.

“The anger of not going to Qatar was evident all over. It was a bare-brained show for Sao Tome and Principe,” Kanye Pamba said.

Nigerians love the beautiful game. It is the opium of the people. It runs in their veins. But the pertinent questions are: where is Peseiro? Has Peseiro returned to Portugal like other foreign coaches recruited by Nigeria? If we have learned our lessons from the past events, then Peseiro should be seen around league venues monitoring matches to pick future Super Eagles from the home-grown players. Any coach who needs to be prompted to stay in Nigeria to train our boys should be shown the exit door.

We have the best opportunity to change how we do things, having not qualified for the Qatar 2022 World Cup and these changes should include how to generate cash to prosecute the campaigns without relying wholly on government. Corporate sponsorship of our football would come when our organisations learn how to account properly for what they received. Corporate cash isn’t freebies. Rather is cash of shareholders who need to know what their money was used.