Ade Ojeikere

I really haven’t celebrated any age-grade feat by Nigerian teams at the continental or global levels. I have always insisted on having school children participate in such tournaments if we truly understand what sports development at the grassroots entails. Our penchant for winning every game or competitions where we have been enlisted has crippled sports, especially soccer, such that our senior team is largely populated by Nigeria-born lads. Pity.

Soccer crazy countries during the FIFA U-17 World Cup competitions are not there essentially to lift the trophy. They are there with the products from a structured plan to spot talents early. No kamikaze approach. Players being paraded by these countries are from renowned academies whose duty is to discover, nurture and expose kids from around them to play in such big stages. These nations’ nationals don’t have to ask their neighbours who the players are during games.

Academies which are nurseries for warehousing the game have been standardised to protect the sector and backed by law for effectiveness. It is at this level that countries’ playing patterns evolve depending on what the coaches feel could bring the best from their nationals.

Standards are set for owning such academies including their curriculum to shut out quackery. These academies are registered by the country’s FA with the right synergy struck where players’ movement in and out of the country are documented.

These academies ensure that the players’ career paths are cut to fit their ambitions. Those of them eager to combine playing soccer with going to school are enrolled to be educated. They also have drawn up training schedules to suit their schools’ curriculum, knowing the importance of education when their career as soccer players is over. Nothing happens in such countries as an accident.

We are interested in celebrating what the contingents get and not how such feats improve on the game across the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country. Coaches eager to be decorated by the president of the country at an elaborate reception, always cast an indulgent eye when accepting cheats as kids. The quest to be tagged World Cup coaches have blinded the tacticians to brazenly flout the rules of the competition, knowing that their lives would change with every World Cup-winning achievement.

This mindset is further emboldened by cheating parents who connive with their wards and collaborators in the system to present midgets or should I say those with stunted growths as kindergarten, forgetting that the world knows where to find kids within the set age brackets. It hurts when our Golden Eaglets emerge as champions, with many not talking about their schools or their mates celebrating them on social media. It makes the world sigh, knowing what those with the right systems do theirs.

It is easy to know that something is amiss when our victorious Eaglets storm the country with the trophies and the players aren’t referring to their mates in the schools nor do we see any school sending its kids to welcome their sport ambassadors as it is done elsewhere. I say this without any iota of fear knowing the joy I experienced last month watching parents of the kids in the youth team Aston Villa used to play against Liverpool in the FA Cup Third round game being brought to the stadium by their parents.

These young boys didn’t drive to the match venues nor did they charter big cars to convey them to the stadium. Instead, their parents showing that they are still under the tutelage of their parents. No prize for guessing right that the boys’ schools acknowledged the feat against Liverpool though the kids lost the game 4-1, expectedly.

Recall a certain England youth side which won the U-20 World Cup which had many Nigeria-born kids, although most of them were of mixed parentage depending on their choices.  Players of Nigerian descent in the England squad include Fikayo Tomori, Dominic Solanke, Ademola Lookman and Sheyi Ojo as U-20 World Cup champions didn’t come as a surprise. Most of them have been mates since when they were in the lower cadre of age-grade teams in the past. The key point here is continuity and it helped the team to blend easily during games. The English celebrated them because they discovered, nurtured, and exposed these Nigerians to the world, which is sacrosanct. It also underscores the proficiency of the system in place to roll out talents annually unlike ours where we scout for boys with stunted growth for age-grade competitions, which was prevalent in the past.

These kids evolved from the deliberate policies in those countries with their biggest plank being the synergy between such nations’ education section and their sports counterparts.

These nations use sports to change the world’s perception of them just as it helps the citizens to improve on their health statuses, not forgetting the role sports plays in taking the kids out of the social vices for the general good of their citizens. Sports is the easiest way to address the issue of massive employment for the unemployed, only if new policies are perceived by subsequent governments as theirs.

Nigeria sports appears to be in the doldrums because new administrations throw into the trash bins models established by previous governments. Except the school system return to the models which helped to produce great sportsmen and women, the industry would continue to look outside for talents who have been displaced in other countries and parade them as ours. Of course, the results of such quick fixes are not lost on us.

Schools sports died with the introduction of free education which ensured that playgrounds effectively converted into classrooms by our administrators. Schools had colleges up to six from the initial school making it impossible for the students to recreate. Those students who tried to recreate through sports chose to improvise devices, such as playing soccer in the spaces left or arranging all forms of long planks and in some instances arranging two tables to play table tennis. Today, many old students associations are beginning to return their schools to what they were when they were student decades ago. But the damage has been done.

Today, sports councils have been converted to sports commissions which is a better package provided those adopting it know what it entails. It is important to note here that the states with the sports commission models must find how the new contraption can work in tandem with the ministry of education which supervises the schools where the students are. If the schools get on stream fully, Covid-19 permitting, prominent old students and indeed, sports-loving governors can garner resources together to reinvent school sports in the country as a matter of deliberate policies. The students are there but there are no facilities for them to burn out energy.

It truly hurts when schools hire playgrounds to host their traditional inter-house sports, which in the past was a delight to watch with each school showing its facilities for others to emulate. Governors can impress it on their customers (those firms and people who do businesses with them) to chip in some cash to revamp some of the moribund competitions which brought kids together outside of the National Sports Festival which has since lost its essence due to the different contraptions that have bedevilled the competition.

In the case of football, it is the simplest game and perhaps the cheapest to run at the foundation level – grassroots where all you need do to get kids together is to bounce the ball at the centre circle of the field anywhere in the 774 LGAs in the country and the pitches would be filled with eager youth wishing to showcase their talent.

I listened to the Golden Eaglets’ coach on television talking about assembling the players in camp over long periods. The imminent question would be how those kids hope to combine their school work with playing football. The coach should be told that the boys he picked aren’t the best. Which parent would allow the kids such a long period of absence, if they are truly kids (U-17)? What he needs to do is scouting around the country for better and more competitive players who would play games as if their lives depend on it.

The manager should worry about the large number of players who failed the MRI test for eligibility prior to the first campaign where Nigeria finished as runners-up. The place to find U-17 players are the secondary schools and possibly the primary schools for those who started school late to their parents’ and guardians’ lean purses. We need to change the narrative where our Eaglets win trophies and schools can’t celebrate such feats showing us their wards.

Our previous victories haven’t translated to anything good for our football at the higher levels for reason one has espoused here. Why would school-age players be thinking about rewards in cash? Shouldn’t they be talking about how to improve their education while playing the game? Rather than give the players cash, such monies ought to have been routed through their parents who can channel such cash appropriately. The argument in some quarters that Nigeria’s poor showing in age-grade competitions lately is because the NFF stopped paying them as they did in the past is weak.

Ade Ojeikere

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’ door anytime they are ready, forgetting that cash from the corporate world are investors’ contributions to such companies’ fiscal outlays. No investor throws its money on any project without critical analysis on 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 budgets.

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 to 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?

With this setting, the organisers had no product to sell to investors beyond trying to use their friends in high places to broker a deal. Simply put, no arm of the league is functional, culminating in the easy exit of most of our continental representative, beaten by clubs from less prominent football nations as Nigeria. Since the league was always in abeyance, the home-based players couldn’t compete with their foreign-based counterparts whenever they are invited to fight for shirts in our national teams. They are used as training materials. Ironically, the few lucky ones that get to Europe return as kings to get shirts – just because of their change of residence.

A few clubs in the past have sold to the European markets over 30 players each, yet such clubs aren’t solvent. For anyone including governors who are owners of these clubs to resolve this knotty issue, club chairmen should be axed and agents told to submit all transactions for proper audit by each club or state government. Some club chairmen, agents, scouts, some secretariat staff, and some board members are neck-deep in this inter-club menace which has pauperised the domestic clubs to date. The new CEO of the league should make these two elements more viable to the clubs by raising the alarm where he smells foul play.

How can an academy say they own a professional player? The rules spell it out clearly that once a player has attained professional status, he cannot during such a period assume an amateur status. In the law book, it is stated that no academy can loan a player to a premier league team. If that is the case, why do academies turn up for claims for such a player whenever he gets a European club’s contract? This misnomer causes a huge capital flight from the domestic league. The first disadvantage of such illicit transfers is that these players can’t return to the country, since they would be stranded in the countries they were taken to by the shylock agent, who is usually on AWOL when such transfers go awry.

It’s shameful that Governors only see the Nigerian league as a tool for popularity test and strengthening their political stronghold on soccer-loving citizens of the state. Do they need to be told to hands-off the clubs and encourage private corporations to invest in the league? How do governors fund clubs without returns like we have in Europe?  The governors must insist on seeing what they earned from inter and intra club transfers before committing fresh cash to the clubs.

The clubs were told to ensure they have at least N400 million in their respective accounts before the commencement of this season. Yet, Heartland FC of Owerri players and officials are complaining about being owed wages running into years and the owners of the club paying deaf ears to these people’s plight. What these owners of clubs forget is that these players, coaches, and backroom staff earn a living for what they do with Heartland, for instance. Not paying them their wages monthly and other entitlements as at when due, not to talk about owing them running into years ruin their lives, especially with the prevalent economic recession and the imminent threat from the Coronavirus pandemic.

These people have families to take care of. Have the state governors of these debtor clubs pondered how such people can educate their kids or how they meet with their families’ responsibilities? Do these governors expect these workers to steal for those who don’t have relations to loan them monies to at least feed their kids? Today, nobody can say how much our clubs are worth. Nobody dares ask how much players earn since many cannot remember when they were last paid.

Nigeria’s poor showing at the cadet competitions with the U-17 level, Golden Eaglets, the U-20 cadre, Flying Eagles, etc in recent times speaks to the decadence in the domestic league which has failed to play its role – being the nursery for all our national teams. In saner climes, professional clubs have nurseries to discover, train, and expose new talents. Interestingly, these European clubs, for instance, have competitions in which their age-grade teams participate like their senior counterparts. In fact, these juniors play their matches on Fridays. Trophies are won and prize monies given to winners, whereas our winners at the senior level haven’t been paid their prize monies in the last few seasons.

Winning the Premier League brings with it all sorts of concomitant financial rewards, but the immediate prize for the champions Liverpool was in the region of £150 million ($182m) about N77.8 billion. The total money from domestic (£5.136 billion) and oversees (£3.2 billion) three-year deal was around £8.36 billion, the total TV money is then spread equally into three seasons which is around £2.6 billion and that makes the yearly prize money fund for the Premier League teams.

In LaLiga, they distributed around €0.85 billion (£0.62 billion) a season among clubs (10 % went to La Liga 2 clubs). So the prize money pool for 2019-20 season was around €1 billion (£0.7 billion). The total money from both domestic and overseas three TV deals combined is around €2.65 billion (£1.8 billion). Which they divide into three parts making prize money pool for each of the three seasons under the TV deal period 2016-2019. Football is big business and we must act accordingly. Footballers have families and the pitch is their office – in local parlance, it’s called ‘work-chop’. Na from where man dey work, him go chop. So, we should’ve moved past clubs owing players and some teams playing at substandard stadiums.

In Germany, all 64 teams who participated in their version of the FA Cup collected €140,000 for qualification from DFB pokal prize money. The German Bundesliga announced a massive TV rights deal for a 4-year period from 2017-18 season to 2020-21 season where Bundesliga will earn as much as €4.64 billion (£3.6bn) in domestic TV rights deal. We know Rome wasn’t built in a day but these countries and league highlighted have invested quality time with hard work to help them arrive at this stage.

The English Premier League kicked off in 1992 and it is arguably the highest revenue-generating competition in the world. Ours starts in 1990 but still in diapers, 31 years after. Let’s not even start talking about our road network or how many teams have the capacity to travel consistently by air to league venues. Reducing the risk of accidents and robbers attack.

It is from such games that the European countries pick their players across all age-grades unlike our where we throw open the camps for cadet players, yet we find ourselves struggling to get a first 11 since those we pick fail the MRI tests. If we had the professional teams here playing matches and having their junior teams in the competition, picking players for the Golden Eaglets, Flying Eagles, etc would have been a piece of cake.

Soccer crazy nations measure the game’s growth by the number of home-grown players in their national teams. The authorities of the game, FIFA, recognise the importance of this point and have instituted several incentives to drive the game’s development globally. FIFA, in its wisdom, provided funds for less-developed nations to embrace the game and bridge the gap between them and others. The cash is to improve on the facilities for the game to thrive in the 211 affiliate countries.

Ade Ojeikere

THOSE who run our domestic football amuse me a lot when they try to explain their failures, blaming it on the existing systemic crises in the industry. They have forgotten so soon that they promised to effect the desired changes during their campaigns to get elected into office, having studied the trends from afar. Indeed, they have forgotten that they have spent the last decade hovering around past administrators in different capacities. Yet, opening matches began with advertised games moved forward at short notice.

Some of the principalities hindering the growth of the game are in the Dankaro House in Abuja. In fact, some members have turned the federation into their cash cows. In other instances an ATM machine. It is, therefore, understandable why many of them pride themselves as board members, knowing they have no other credible way of identifying themselves. They are in a hurry to flash the NFF board members’ complimentary cards.

Traditionally, the successes of FIFA and CAF rest with the calibre of people listed in their sub-committees who help to superintend over the running of the facets of the two bodies. One of such committees is the referees’ committee which is critical to both bodies’ operations, hence the inclusion of serious-minded personnel, not those angling for sitting allowances. Sitting allowances are paid by either FIFA or CAF depending on which of the bodies initiated such a meeting. It is, therefore, surprising how the organ which should utilise these referees, is being asked to pay for the sitting allowances. Such demands by the members, which were taken to the ridiculous level of not releasing referees to run the game for Week 3, should attract an immediate dissolution or query by the NFF.

Wait a minute NFF? Have the sub-committees been inaugurated? If no, then who were the committee members that met? Those who met to take such a decision should be removed from the committee now for pouring odium on the game. NFF should then inaugurate other sub-committees now that the league season has begun.

NFF’s executive board mustn’t sweep this shameful conduct under the carpet. This condemnable act jeopardised the conduct of genuine COVID-19 tests on the players, officials, match referees, and commissioners at this time when the Coronavirus pandemic is ravaging the world and killing people in quantum. No one can tell the collateral damage this has done to the girls and those who partook in those three matches and indeed all the week 3 fixtures because COVID-19 regulations were not observed. Truth be told.

Nigeria became the laughing stock in world football last week when it was reported in the media that both female teams arrived at their venues without the match officials, who ought to have been in town the previous day to conduct the pre-match formalities in the morning of the matches. It is at such pre-match meetings that the officials read the rules and regulations binding the game. They also direct the  host federations on what they want to be done before, during, and after the matches otherwise, they would call off the game. Sadly, these sub-committee members were interested in getting their allowances paid by the federation’s women’s league board as if they were the ones who called for the meeting.

The shame in the conduct of the NFF Referees Committee not releasing the match officials’ list for the week 3 fixtures in the Nigeria Women Professional League rest with the fact that each committee is headed by an executive committee member, who should know what operates in such circumstances. Indeed, it is the executive body that picks members into the sub-committees, just as it is the federation’s responsibility to fund all meetings which oil the federation’s operations. Only the NFF secretariat can call for sub-committees’ meetings and do so by providing all the required logistics that the members need to hold successful meetings. If the provision for payment wasn’t made to settle their allowances, the chairman of the body ought to have pleaded with his members to bear with the federation. The chairman of the referees’ committee ought to have asked his members to write down their account details for payment in the future. Buoyant chairmen in the past would have paid the members their entitlements and collected the refund from the federation later. It isn’t right for the Women’s Professional League Board (WPLB) to foot such a spurious bill, except the body expressly stated so.

During the defunct Interim League Management Board (ILMB’s) tenure, its members requested the NFF to provide the list of its very competent referees who would run the league for the season which the federation obliged. The ILMB did that to stem poor officiating which had crippled the competition in the past. The ILMB then constituted a referees’ committee which was approved by the NFF to handle the critical aspect of the game. The ILMB then paid for the referees’ entitlements and ensured their contact with the clubs was reduced drastically. The essence of this noble initiative was to reduce tales of sharp practices appreciably. The defunct ILMB also paid for the referees’ transportation to the match venues and the hotels they resided.  I digress!

The bigger shame is that the board members who head these committees also function in various sub-committees in FIFA and CAF, making them privy to how things are done in these higher football platforms. Not so for some of these board members who are not prepared to sacrifice anything for the good and development of the game. Why this committee’s refusal to do their job is condemnable, there is an urgent need for the NFF hierarchy to lay the markers on the table at their next meeting to avoid a repeat of the show of shame at match venues for week 3 fixtures. With such members, one isn’t surprised that the NFF is heavily indebted since the cash in the purse won’t foot all its bills.

The painful aspect of these members’ action was that the girls were made to spend an extra day at the designated cities, meaning they went home immediately after the games stinking in their sweats. Imagine those girls who received knocks during the game having to bear the pain through the tortuous Nigerian roads and the attendant hazards (kidnappers, robbers, etc). Indeed, in the three venues where referees hurried onto the pitch straight from the motor park and airports, the games had to be played at night, with most of them ending some minutes to midnight. Imagine the punishments on the girls who would have to wake up in the early hours to head home.

Agonisingly, these people tried to justify their action by alluding to the fact that it is what operates with the men’s game. What a pity. No wonder nothing good can come out of the domestic game, with such waste pipes existing in the system. It still amazes this writer why the sub-committee members didn’t opt for the virtual meeting which wouldn’t have involved any cost to them. The NFF executive members should as a matter of urgency decree that subsequent meetings on matters concerning the game must be done virtually until the vaccine to cure the deadly Coronavirus is found.

Sports is big business especially soccer. This idea of the NFF to be enmeshed in controversies drives away potential sponsors who wouldn’t want to associate their products and services with the federation. Already, the executive committee has made promised a lot of goodies for the women who are the best team in Africa, unlike their male counterparts who couldn’t win one game in the year 2020. Mention must be made of the Aisha Falode led board which broke the ice of playing league games with a take-off date which they stuck to. Falode’s board also didn’t allow the irritation associated with the referee’s body’s tomfoolery to disrupt the Week 3 fixtures. The fact that the fixtures were completed to allow for the next week’s games to be played is a welcome development showing how the game should be run.

Of course, one needs to wish readers of this newspaper a prosperous New Year after the dreadful Year 2020 and the Coronavirus pandemic. Please obey all the Covid-19 regulations. Use your face masks. Coronavirus is ravaging the world and is, therefore, real.

Ade Ojeikere

Nigeria is truly a huge joke. We have many jesters in high places, little wonder one Nigerian once sang Nigeria jagajaga. How apt were the wordings of the song. This singer had to run away from the country because he was being haunted for daring to splash mud on one of the largest countries in the world. With a huge population, it is easy to find jesters replacing themselves at the pinnacle of governance. Otherwise, what is it that Nigeria has contributed to the emergence of Anthony Oluwafemi Joshua as a world boxing star? Is it the motley crowd who throng England whenever he fights, leaving at home the bosses of the fistic trade in their states?

Is it also the governmental delegation which provided the platform for Joshua to show that he had a proper upbringing by prostrating before president Muhamadu Buhari in London? Or is it the government team that arranged such an epoch-making event as the meeting of the World heavyweight champion with Mr. President, leaving at home the country’s sports minister? Shouldn’t such an event have held in Abuja with Mr. President decorating Joshua with a national honour, like the Queen, did in England when she decorated Joshua with the Member of the British Empire (MBE).

Had Joshua been made to visit Nigeria then, he could have made certain declarations about the fistic trade in the country which would have helped develop the game here. Joshua’s influence in the boxing world is massive. His presence with any NABA delegation to the corporate world would translate to instant cash or such requests approved with the speed of light.

Clips of Joshua training with our boxers would open the doors of sponsors who would want to utilise that marketing window to advertise their products and services.  Such visuals are news items that would attract traction on social media. Joshua’s identifying with Nigerian boxers would help change people’s perception of the country in this recession period. Joshua’s presence at the hitherto Boxing Day activities on December 26, would have been a box office, even with the Coronavirus pandemic. I still don’t understand why the Nigerian government has failed to realise that the biggest public relations tool it can use to mirror the country properly to the world is sports, given its massive followership. Guess what, it comes for free. All that you need is to ensure that the industry thrives with our sportsmen and women attending and distinguishing themselves in big sporting events where Nigeria’s anthem is sung before they are decorated with their medals or trophies. Do our government know what it is for the world to stand still in sporting arenas listening to the rendition of our anthem before events and at medals’ presentation? The ripple effect of Joshua’s romance with boxing albeit sports could re-engineer the working of the industry in the country. Sports is business everywhere else but Nigeria. Again, we have missed the Joshua opportunity because some people wanted to be credited with the events.

Until Joshua came into the limelight after a near horrible past, we didn’t know that he is a Nigerian. When he had a brush with the British laws over drug-related offences arising from his early exposure to social ills to fend for himself, he wasn’t celebrated as a Nigerian here nor did the English accept that he was one of them. Such mischievous tags as Nigeria-born bla bla began his story in most newspapers’ reports unlike now when he is English and his fights are tagged Battle of Britain, ahead of the much-hyped fight against Tyson Fury fixed tentatively for May 2021, with staggering figures put at £200 million and gate takings put at £500 million.

Suspended from Britain’s boxing squad and sentenced to a 12-month community order including100 hours’ unpaid work, Joshua admitted that his conduct brought shame on his family, friends and those within his sport, promising to change his ways.  Those who know Joshua attest to the fact that he is an accomplished footballer and athlete  who could run the 100m in 11 seconds. Joshua began boxing few years ago at a local club after his cousin, Gbenga Ileyemi, recommended the sport.

‘‘The arrest changed a lot. It forced me to grow up and to respect my responsibilities. I’m not happy that I did what I did and there’s no way that kind of thing will ever happen again, but in a way I’m glad it did because it woke me up. I was just like a lot of young lads. It was all about how I looked, my clothes, clubbing, girls. I wasn’t with the best group of people.

‘‘I go running on Saturday nights now, not clubbing. I understand that if I’m to fulfil my potential then it’s all about hard work. It took me a while to realise this, but since last March I’ve never looked back. And you know what? I’m so much happier as a person, too,’’ Joshua told the international media.

This writer has been shocked by the applause from Nigerian government officials since Joshua knocked out Bulgarian boxer, Kubrat Pulev, in the ninth round of their world title bout at the SSE Arena, Wembley, to retain his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight titles. Joshua’s state governor, Dapo Abiodun continued from where his predecessor, Ibikunle Amosun began when he said:  “AJ’s victory gives us, Ogun State people immeasurable joy, as the IBF, WBA and WBO titleholder retained his place at his outing against Kubrat Pulev yesterday (Sunday December 13).

“So, this is to congratulate, on behalf of the good people of the Gateway State, our very own Anthony Joshua on the world-celebrated victory that has brought us pride and a justification for our investment in sports and youth development.” We said Mr. Governor but it would be very nice if you can make Ogun State the new Mecca for boxing in Nigeria. We wait.

“I join thousands of Nigerians who watched the fight last night to congratulate Anthony Joshua. His victory yet again confirms the superiority of Africans especially Nigerians and how far our sportsmen have gone in recent years.

“On behalf of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, I hereby convey the goodwill message of the Federal Government and the good people of Nigeria to him. It is imperative for him to understand how much the government and the people of Nigeria are proud of his achievements as our son”, Lawan said.

Again, Mr Senate President, could you please tell Nigerians how much was voted for sports in the country’s budget? Shouldn’t the national Assembly fashion out sports can be given lump sum as seed money such that it can be run as a business not a recreational activity as it seems here. Paltry sums for sports can’t deliver any dividend for the game and the country.

Mr. Senate President, visualise Joshua holding the National Sports Festival’s torch and trotting towards the Games’ bowl to light up the torch and the attendant crowd around him on his way up, then you would appreciate why the sports minister and the Edo State government, headed by Governor Godwin Obaseki, should be supported to get the world champion in Benin City to actualise this novel dream.

The talk that Joshua didn’t participate in the National Sports Festival is bunkum if we must raise the profile of the Games. I had the unique privilege to carry the London 2012 Olympic Games torch around Birmingham, London, with several world beaters such as the late Muhammed Ali et al. I wasn’t an Olympian before I did that. So what stops Joshua from lighting the Edo 2020 National Sports Festival’s torch inside the Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia stadium in Benin City in March, with pomp and ceremony?

Sports and its ancillary parts would grow in geometric projections if our administrators think outside the box. And this includes copying the way things are done in other climes.

Mr. Senate President, how much is the government budgeting for the Olympics in 2021 and the World Cup in Qatar in 2022? Serious minded nations aren’t talking about budgets but counting in their mind’s eyes the number of medal they would get at the Olympics, for instance. Mr. Senate President, sportsmen and women are among the highest paid professionals. Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, Lewis Hamilton, Usain Bolt et al are some of the big earners. They achieved this feat because they were exposed to sports as kids. In fact, Serena’s dad groomed his daughters for stardom. No one is shocked by the phenomenal achievements of the Williams’ sisters -Venus and Serena.

For any commodity to have value, it must have a price. You ask, how much is any sport worth in Nigeria? Keep guessing. A company will place its goods or services on sports if there is massive followership, since the firm needs to reach as many consumers as possible. Firms key into sports to enhance their corporate image and clientele, which they won’t want to tarnish on the altar of sports sponsorship. This is why they seldom support Nigeria sports because most sports federations have not cultivated the culture of accountability.

Food and beverages firms as well as other sponsors see in the fans who throng the venues a window to market their goods and services.

Ade Ojeikere

I’M not a prophet of doom. I’m just worried about the dearth of the domestic league with those in authority to effect the desired changes watching in awe. 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 pastures. For Musa Mohammed, the star trek to African clubs was an indictment on 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 government’s yearly subvention.

Musa Mohammed wanted the league to be independent of the rot at the better forgotten Glasshouse in Abuja. The soldier man administrator was convinced that the game could be run without government subvention at the level since 80 per cent of the clubs in the elite class were government owned. He, therefore used his relationship to convince the governors to fund their teams. The former sports minister wasn’t prepared to listen to the NFA rhetoric as it concerns its propriety or otherwise. 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 majority of them being club owners without paying a dime for such teams to strive. Musa wasn’t prepared to do business with the so called club owners and stakeholders, who later surrendered and accepted an admixture of their list and the minister’s. The NFA board as they were then known kicked but the minster stuck to his guns alluding to Act 101 which gave him the powers 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  fuelled by facts provided by those running the competition to those who could afford the cost of such information. In fact, a former Lagos based club won matches at the board room for offences bordering on players having collected the maximum three mandatory yellow cards for such players to miss the next game. Of course with poor documentation, some of these clubs were not informed of the players who should miss such matches. So, those clubs with the cash bought such vital hints and waited until after such matches to submit their protests within the stipulated 48 hours notice for such a case.

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 spoilt the match officials with good ‘hospitality’, leaving the match arbiters with no other option than to ensure such teams win such games at all cost. Those stubborn referees were beaten groggy by such clubs’ irate fans. With such dangerous settings, urchins at match venues ran riot, injuring the referees while the fans were forced to run through tear gas shot by security personnel inside the stadium in a bid to exit the premises.

Until the formation of the ILMB, departmental heads of the league department gave their favoured referees 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 the handling of 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. For the Ilorin fans, it was not only a taboo for the away side to score and to even have the guts to do so in the first ten minutes was absolutely unbearable.

In the ensuing fracas, Late Col Dogo Yabilsu who was the centre referee in that match was beaten to stupor and had to be smuggled out of the stadium disguised as a woman.

Unfortunately for Kwara United, Col Yabilsu who was brutalised by their fans was the then chairman of the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA) and every league follower 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.

The ripple effect of this maladministration of the league was that our representatives at the CAF inter-club competitions didn’t justifiably represent the country with their shambolic performances. In fact, it was the practice then for new winners of the Nigeria league to replace those who won them the title the previous year with new recruits. This tardy arrangement underscored how these winners emerged with the owners knowing all the unscrupulous methods they used to grab the needed points on the pitch and at the boardroom. The talk in town by one of the regular winners of the league is that the owners know how they won the title and couldn’t be worried if the winning coaches and players are replaced for the better ones. Wonderful. yet the organisers didn’t call such officials to explain what they meant by such unworthy declaration.

Musa Mohammed’s ILMB started by stopping the practice where clubs paid referees. This move reduced the level of contact between referees and the clubs, although members of the local chapels of the referee body still influenced the gullible ones amongst their mates. The ILMB paid referees’ indemnities into their accounts before match days. the board paid for the hotels and ensured they stationed strong willed match commissioners to ensure strict enforcement of the rules. Match commissioners ensured that games don’t begin except all the requirements specified for hosting matches are met, including the number of security operatives (50) at that time.

It is on record that the ILMB prosecuted a fan who was caught by operatives after pummelling a referee in home game involving Bendel Insurance FC in Benin City. It served as a deterrent to others, forcing such a reduction in cases of mayhem at match venues. This holigan was caught by the ILMB chairman who watched the game and recognised him, althuhg the cameras captured his animalistic acts against the referee.

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.

With the matches live on television and the apparent changes in the organisation, it was easy for investors to identify with the game. 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 Superstores as Broadcast right owners.

Each Club was given 10million from title rights, and 3 to 4million 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 little fee.

Capacity building was at the rooftop through coaching and refresher seminars for coaches, pre-season seminars and workshops for club managers, doctors, supporters, grounds men were all retrained by resource persons from all over the world.

Water sprinklers were distributed by the league to all clubs to maintain their playing pitches. These innovations to the league ensured that three of our representatives qualified for the quarter-finals stages of the CAF inter-club competitions.

Ade Ojeikere

WHY are we so blessed in Africa? Why do we go to any length to avenge defeats? Why do we forget that the flexibility of sports fixture could pitch countries against each other in the not too distant future? This writer cannot understand how the Gambians would expect any warm reception from the Gabonese in years to come. Truth be told, sports isn’t a warfare. Sports unite tribes that are divided. Sports is a business. Sports entertain, hence people flock to the stadia across the world to watch matches. It is an emotive game that could force fans against each other. Such barbaric acts have, however, been condemned and culprits punished appropriately.

Most African countries have forgotten that the world is a global village such that at the press of the button good and bad news pop up. It’s very disturbing seeing scenes captured on video and written with comments from not a less a superstar in world football Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang et al streaming the barbaric conduct of officials in the Gambia, who made the Gabonese sleep at their airport, 24 hours to a game. What a country? A football game?

Simply because the Gambians were beaten 2-1 in the first leg game? It should be a matter of life and death. The incident led to accusations of dirty tricks by the Gambia, who won the Group D clash 2-1.

Aubameyang complained about being held hostage as the Gabonese were  kept in a Gambian airport, Banjul International Airport for six hours until 6 am without their passports, hours before a key AFCON clash. What won’t we see with African football authorities with the continent’s governing soccer Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) just restricting all that happened before, during, and after the game. This means that whatever occurred before match day doesn’t really matter unless it involves a disaster. Pity.

Aubameyang showed his frustration after three hours, posting a video at 02:31 which read: “Still waiting to enter the Gambia, and we play at 4 pm. Nice.” A follow-up soon after showed the team listening to music and joking, with Aubameyang adding that “they will not discourage us”.

“Finally on the bus. Thanks for the extra motivation, Gambia,” Aubameyang wrote.

“This will not demotivate us but people need to know and especially that CAF takes these responsibilities. In 2020, we want Africa to grow and this is not how we’re going to get there!!,” Aubameyang tweeted.

The Gambians visited Gabon without qualms although they lost the game 2-1. What then could have informed the primitive method of holding the visitor hostage becomes a poser for CAF to unravel soonest. But Aubamenyang has some doubts in CAF  being firm. Of course, based on similar experiences in the past or what happened to other countries in the past? hold your fire Aubamenyang but of course, there is free speech.

Aubameyang said in a Twitter message to CAF: ‘Just want to know why the Gambia kept our passports for hours and they kept us at the airport. Are we hostages or what? Are you gonna close your eyes?’

Aubamenyang’s poser to CAF chieftains is instructive since he represents the best of the Africans in Europe without incredible outings playing for top Barclays English Premier League side Arsenal. CAF needs to act fast otherwise, Arsenal FC’s management wouldn’t release Aubamenyang to the Gabonese given the Gabonese’s value to the English and what they stand to gain having a fit Aubamenyang playing the team’s matches. The fears by Gabon FA boss aren’t, therefore, surprising. Gabon boss Patrice Neveu believes Arsenal will block Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from future call-ups following Monday’s ordeal after the striker was held in a Gambian airport for six hours.

If Arsenal’s management decides this way, then the little spark which the continental games have in terms of attendance by the fans and sponsorship drive by the local FAs would be destroyed. Many Gabonese won’t bother to watch their country’s matches life knowing that their biggest stars won’t be available. If Arsenal stops Aubmenyang, for instance (God forbid), other European clubs would emulate them by preventing their stars from coming to Africa to play for their countries simply because of the unsportsmanlike conduct of the Gambia FA personnel.

  The Gabonese have their share of the blame by refusing to disclose their arrival time. It was expedient of them to tell their hosts their arrival time. If they sent words that they would be at the airport at 6 pm, then they should have abided by what they sent. If for any reason their schedule changed, it was only fair to inform their hosts of the change in arrival time.

Omar Sey, the CAF health officer for The Gambia / Gabon match explained that: ‘’The Gabonese players refused to surrender their Covid-19 test certificates to authorities at the Banjul International Airport. The players were scheduled to arrive at 6 pm but instead arrived at midnight without any correspondence to Banjul.

‘’The players also refused to have their samples taken at the airport.  Under the rules no one should be allowed in without a certificate or testing at the airport but with the intervention of the Gabonese Ambassador the players were allowed to go to the hotel where their samples will be taken this morning (Monday) with the results expected before kickoff at 5 pm.’’

Is this a case of inexperience on the part of the CAF man in handling such tricky issues? Could it be that the CAF was speaking tongue in check for fear of incurring the wrath of his hosts? Or was it the fault of the Gabonese? These are posers which CAF must find out by set up a panel to look at what happened in the Gambia

The Covid-19 regulations have become the platform for countries to humiliate their visitors.

Sports isn’t a warfare. Those countries such as Gabon and Nigeria who rejected the way they were treated by their hosts hinged their reservations on the kind gesture they extended to their hosts in the first game. Why some countries turn what should be a reciprocal act to politics still beats this writer. What CAF chieftains must inform all the countries when the next round of qualifiers are played on March 22 and March 30 next year, would be for them to tolerate everyone. Covid-19 protocols are of international standards. All countries must respect what everyone has and subject themselves to what obtains in particular countries.  Undergoing Covid-19 tests shouldn’t be trivialised.

Deliberately, I have delayed looking at Nigeria’s double-header against Sierra Leone in Benin City and in Freetown because we needed such lessons to chart a new course for ourselves. what happened to the Super Eagles had to do with the players’ refusal to nail the Leone Stars with as many goals as possible. With a four-goal advantage, Samuel Chukwueze took things for granted by attempting to put the ball in between the Sierra Leonean defender’s legs.

Chukwueze had successfully done that to the defender, apparently showing that was his only dribbling style. He, therefore, became predictable. The 4-4 scoreline started with that mistake. One isn’t, therefore, surprised that our players do not play a string of matches for their European clubs because they lack tactical discipline. Nigerian players like to play to the gallery in such instances. If Chukwueze did that with his

Spanish side, he would spend a long time on the bench unless his replacement doesn’t live to expectation.

I don’t care what Gernot Rohr told our players at halftime in Benin. If the truth must be told, our players should beat Sierra Leone home and away, even if the coach was sent off the pitch in both games in the first minute of the game. Our armada of star from Europe always come short when playing for Nigeria. This is the between our players and the Cameroonians, Ghanaians to mention a few. And this kind of attitude exhibited in Benin City, in particular, predates this squad. Our players’ mindset before matches against hitherto minnows in the continent has been awful. Need I waste space to list matches where our big boys haven’t come to the party? Is it the first game which handled as Super Eagles in Rwanda, where the late Stephen Keshi had to abuse some of the big stars at halftime to wake up and good play football? If Vincent Enyeama wasn’t at his best, Rwanda would have beaten Nigeria because of our stars’ lukewarm attitude to the game. It ended on a barren note because of Enyeama’s brilliance.

Make no mistake here. I’m not exonerating Rohr. I’m only saying that our players must rise up to flog countries that deserve to be beaten groggy with goals. Those who employed him know what they saw in him. I look forward to what becomes of Rohr before the country’s next game against Benin Republic on March 22 next year.