Category: Sports

Super Eagles stars John Mikel Obi, Victor Moses and John Utaka who had earlier been nominated for this year’s CAF player award have finally fallen by the way side as the continental body Friday released short list of contenders.

The shortlists were unveiled at a ceremony in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, attended by CAF Executive Committee member Kwesi Nyantakyi and officials from Globacom, sponsors of the annual event that seeks to reward distinguished footballers for their exploits during the year under review.

There were five nominees for the Player of the Year and three for the Player of the Year (Based in Africa), which were reached after votes from the Head Coaches or Technical Directors of the National Associations affiliated to CAF.

The process began with a selection of pool of players by the Football, Media and Technical Committees of CAF taking into consideration the performance of the players this year.

The shortlists for the 2012 CAF Player of the Year are (in alphabetical order):

1. Alexander song (Cameroon and Barcelona),

2. Andre Ayew (Ghana and Olympique Marseille)

3. Demba Ba (Senegal and Newcastle United)

4. Didier Drogba (Cote d’Ivoire and Shanghai Shenhua)

5. Yaya Toure (Cote d’Ivoire and Manchester City)

For the 2012 CAF Player of the Year (Based in Africa), the shortlists are (in alphabetical order);

1. Mohamed Aboutreika (Egypt and Al-Ahly)

2. Rainford Kalaba (Zambia and TP Mazembe)

3. Stoppila Sunzu (Zambia and TP Mazembe)

The winners will be named at the Awards Gala to be held on December 20 at the Banquet Hall, State House, Accra in Ghana.

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) generated a sum of N764,008,000.00 in the year 2012, and are expecting N788,100.00 in 2013. According to the General secretary of the Football Federation Musa Amadu, Globacom Nigeria Limited ranked in N350,000.000.00 into the Federation’s purse. Guiness Nigeria PLC also contributed N178,000,000.00 to the purse. Football kits giant, Adidas paid the Federation N162,400.000.00. Others funds that the Federation generated in the outgoing year include Samsung- N25,120,000.00, Central Bank of Nigeria – N15, 688,000.00, Protest/Appeals- N6,700,000.00, FIFA License- N5,100,000.00, Africa Independent Television- N20,000,000.00 and Brila FM- N1,000,000.00.

The scribe said the Federation had expended N1,506,318,738.51 as at October, 2012. He further revealed that between this period, that the overhead subvention released by the Federal Government include

January- N172,171,838.60, February- N172,171,838.60, March-N172,171,838.60, April- N282,800,892.70, May- N282,800,892.70, June- N141,400,446,00, July- N141,400,446.00, August- N141,400,446.00, September- N141,400,446.00, October- N141,400,446.00. Amadu further said that N10,567,487.00 was the capital allocation released between the period.

THE Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) is lining up an international friendly match against Tanzania on December 23 to gauge the readiness of the Chipolopolo before launching the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title defence in South Africa next year.

Zambia, eager to retain the coveted trophy at the 2013 AFCON finals, will undergo an intensive training programme and the team’s preparedness will be tested in four tough friendly games.

With January 12 already set aside for a high-profile match against Norway at the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in Ndola, the Chipolopolo will kick-off their pre-AFCON friendlies against the East African side at a venue to be named later after consultations are concluded.

According to FAZ sources, the Chipolopolo will also play two more preparatory games whose opponents are yet to be confirmed before giving local fans a mouth-watering farewell match against Norway in January.

The source also said that the association was determined to ensure the African champions were battle-ready for the 2013 AFCON finals and that the match against Tanzania would help the team especially that the Taifa Stars have played so many times with Zambia’s AFCON opponents, Ethiopia.

FAZ assured the Zambians that the Chipolopolo would be ready for the opening January 21 clash against 1962 winners, Ethiopia in this Group C match set for Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit.

The association appealed to the local football enthusiasts to rally behind the team and turn up in numbers to cheer the squad in South Africa from the first match.

The source said the Nelson Mandela Challenge against South Africa last Wednesday which the Chipolopolo won courtesy of a Collins Mbesuma strike, gave coach Herve Renard pointer of his AFCON squad.

From the 2012 AFCON winning squad only star midfielder, Rainford Kalaba missed the Bafana Bafana clash due to injury.

The Chipolopolo medical team has already tailored a programme for Kalaba to help him heal completely with FAZ stressing that the nimble-footed player will not be rushed into action until he reaches his maximum potential.

However, the Chipolopolo’s preliminary preparations will be a 10-day intensive training camp specifically for the local-based players, giving them an opportunity to stake their claim for a place in the AFCON squad.

After the initial India trip fell through, FAZ are now hoping to send the squad to Aspire Academy in Qatar with Milpark in South Africa being the other alternative if the journey to the Gulf flops.

On the facilities allocated to Zambia during the AFCON in Nelspruit, the source said the four-star Protea Hotel; complete with all necessary training facilities was a fantastic place for the Chipolopolo to plot their rise to the top again.

The Chipolopolo will be training at Ka Nyamazane Stadium within Nelspruit. Zambia is the top seed of Group C which also comprises two-time winners, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.

Also, FAZ is courting Qatar and Oman as they switch the hunting expedition for Chipolopolo friendly matches to the Middle East after the collapsed KCM-sponsored India training.

According to sources within Football House, the murky preparations for Zambia’s AfCON defence campaign still attracted a lot of goodwill from sponsors, buoyed by the February success in Gabon.

Zambia’s planned tour of duty to Goa, India was aborted mainly by FAZ’s failure to write to All India Football Federation (AIFF) and arrange for the three friendly matches which were planned on a non-FIFA sanctioned day.

Due to poor of funding, professional Nigerian golfers have not been able to make headway in the international stage in fact, the country has very few professional golfers mixed with a couple of Ghanaians who live in the country and play the professional circuit, fighting for honours in the few tournaments they get to play in.

Names like Emos Korblah, Gift Willy, Vincent Torgah and Andrew Oche Odoh are

Common place on the golf scene.

No wonder there was bubbly excitement around the region when news filtered out that Glo was planning a tour in the famished golf circuit.

Globacom announced an expensive four city tour that would cost over N300m in logistics and prizes. The Glo Golf Tour, West Africa is designed to a spectacular golf tournament with the biggest purse in West Africa.

The tour teed off in Asaba, Delta State on Thursday November 8 to December 9, 2012 in Asaba with top Professional and Category 1 Amateur golfers across West Africa competing for the prizes which include the N62.5 million Pro-Am purse, a brand new Toyota Corolla for the Hole-in-One and a N1 million Veteran’s prize.

Among the foreign pros that are playing at the tournament are Ghana’s Number 1 golfer Amos Cobbler and compatriots Vincent Torgah, Mawuli J. and Doe D. There is also Cameroun’s Number 1 Ebela Desire, and compatriots Nlareb A., and Tchana, H.C. Nigeria is parading stars like Edet Umoh, the Odoh brothers, Willy Gift, Ayuba Musa other top ranked pros.

From the opening ceremony at Ibori Golf and Country Club, Asaba Delta State on Thursday November 8, the tour moves to a new city every week where the golfers will play for between N10m to n15m for pros and N500,000 worth of prizes for amateurs (including free airtime, iPads and trophies ) throughout the tour.

Ghanaians, Vincent Torgah and Amos Korblah placed first and second respectively after four gruelling days of sweat and dust on the lush greens of the Ibori Golf and Country Club, Asaba.

The undulating topography of the Blue Elephant Club, Sagamu played host to the golfers from November 14 to 18, with Nigeria’s Andrew Oche Odoh topping the log table.

From Abuja, they will go on to putt for the N20m cash prize for pros and N500,000 for amateurs, in the grand finale from December 6 to 8, 2012, at the Oturkpo Country Club, an emerging golfing destination.

It is pertinent to note that GLO had provided a brand new Toyota Corolla sedan for any player capable of playing a hole-in-one and it was duly won by Mohammed Yahaya Liman of the IBB Golf and Country club, who surprised everybody including himself, by smashing the ball home in hole eight. This spectacle took place in the

Abuja leg of the tour.

Playing at 4 over by the time he got to Hole 8, Liman said he wasbrilliantly surprised to see the ball heading for the flag, and slowly rolling into the hole.“Although I believed strongly that I would have a good game and even win the competition, my intention was not to play

Hole-in-One. By the time I got to Hole 8, I was playing 5 over. My intention was to play a birdie and come to 4 over and then play another birdie and get to 3 over. Luckily when I smashed the ball, it went into the hole,” Liman explained. He also went on to say that “Glo

is enriching golf sponsorship in Nigeria”, which most people will readily agree to.

The Golf Tour, which is an initiative of Globacom, has so far pulled between 80 and 100 pros and about 80 amateurs at each stop. The amateur golfers being drawn from the hosting club and Globacom’s post paid subscriber base.

The amount Glo is spending on this tour is astonishing and must be commended because countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya, which have better sponsorship than Nigeria, better golf courses and more professional players, have not been able to attract that kind of funds for their PRO-AM tours. Indeed most of the golfers spoken to, gushed at the largesse they get to benefit from.

For Nigerian professional golfers to bridge the gap and play at the level of their South African and Zimbabwean counterparts, more of this kind of funding is needed. More companies need to provide sponsorships to these players so that they can play regularly at the highest level and test themselves with the best players in Africa and move on to the European and America circuit.

Transparency is a fundamental attribute in any due process and it is only practically achievable in a system that has been able to develop a pattern of either administration or a process by which an outsider can easily follow to comprehend the operations of such organization with all necessary indicators on how to achieve such organizations objective.

Sport management in Nigeria over the years have been shrouded in a lot of secrecy and very minimal level of transparency in its operations and the reason is not farfetched because most processes and systems are not properly an well defined. Our sport management policies are simply hinged on the various actors who mount the stage each time they are called upon to act.

Today you have a National Sports Commission talking about strategic plans for sport development whereas years before now one would not have seen the NSC thinking in this line but again my concern is what will happen later on will it be sustained or as the saying goes the idea dies with its proponent. We hear of Sport managers talking about winning the private sector to participate in sport by way of investment through sponsorship of partnership e.t.c.

However, the missing link to this noble objective is the failure to put in place mechanism that will have the capacity of winning sport investors confidence. Over the years the administration of sport have been characterized in high level secrecy according to several media reports. We have recorded accusations of mismanagement and misappropriation of funds, late release of funds, poor accountability of funds, systemic failures and a virtual process of no clearly defined direction as it relates to the running the various sport programmes.

In the recent Interpol Integrity in Sport Weekly Media recap 5-11 November, 2012 Nigeria was mentioned and we shouldn’t forget that this report is generated from the various media reports on corruption in sports around the world. Such media reports are analyzed by Interpol Integrity in Sport and published in their weekly report. And most sport investors also get their information from there thus determining where to invest and where not to invest.

Let me move away from the dark painting of an image without a form into the creation of one with form. For Nigeria sport operators to win investors confidence in sport there the need for sport operators to be ready to redefine the way and manner by which they manage our sport, We need to develop a clear policy or what I may refer to as rules of engagement on sport management, we need to engage the services of qualified men and women to handle the affairs of sport management, we need to open up the sector for the inclusion of other allied professionals whose services will help reposition the focus of the new sport management of our dream.

Another component that must be addressed is the cumulative economic implication of negative reporting of sport and its effects on investors’ confidence. We must all realize that sport in Nigeria has the capacity to cater for all sport stakeholders and as such it should be guarded jealously and not to be destroyed through negative publicity. While appreciating and also welcoming constructive criticism we should detest sentimentalism and baseless reportage of sporting events. In fact I will advocate we start talking more on the events rather than the drivers of these events.

There is no cooperate organization or multinational that will be ready to bring in their money to support sport events if they cannot analyze and have an estimated projection on their return on investment. Cooperate Nigeria are in business to make profit and as such are not charity organizations. Therefore there is no better time than now for the National Sports Commission to develop an administrative framework that will be backed by policy to promote accountability, investors confidence, sound application of effective management practices.

Sport Federations in Nigeria should be given some latitude to source for their fund, take decisions on their funds, develop the marketing module and sell same without recourse to any superior body while ensuring that the international best practices are upheld. All Federation C.E.O’s must be professionals sport managers not accidental sport managers because we need to really get down to the idea that sport is a serious business concern and not just a social responsibility kind of thing.

The National Sports Commission in my view should be given more powers in fact I will subscribe that the NSC be renamed to be the National Sports Regulatory Commission with all powers to enforce standards practice in the management and organization of sport in Nigeria while also granting freedom to all Federations to go develop themselves with the mandate on strict compliance to the highest form of ethics and value as is done in other climes.

We can as a nation rebuild our sport industry and this we can do if we decide to do away with internal wrangling, unhealthy politics, executive recklessness, lack of fiscal discipline, unhealthy rivalry, maladministration, misapplication of resources and sport management nepotism.

Winning Sport Investors Confidence is fundamental in unlocking the flow of investors funding in sports. It is never late to start while we encourage our sport managers to be upright and transparent in service delivery other stakeholders should also be told that the systematic destruction for personal gratification is a recipe for total annihilation from the much needed investment in sport by genuine sport investors.

Now is the time for us to change our attitude and put in place the right policies that will promote transparency, professionalism and restore credibility and confidence from the public. Nigeria Sport Managers should strive hard to change public opinion through the promotion of transparent environment and it starts from been honest and fair to all guided by professional conduct in the discharge of one’s duty as a sport manager.