Pinnick Amaju must be celebrating his Tuesday feat in Warri. He richly deserves to be the new NFF President, given his achievements in Delta State. A self-made man, Amaju knows what he wants. He gets things done. He doesn’t know how to explain failure. He is hot tempered, but he flips over for the right reasons. For instance, when the centre referee from Bayelsa State who handled the Delta State FA Cup final last year nearly bungled the best final held in the country, he showed his foul mood.
An avid supporter of Arsenal, Amaju knows that football is big business. He has a working template already in Delta, but that shouldn’t translate to the norm. He needs to widen the horizon. But in doing that, he should ask what the template on ground is and find a way to improve on it; not destroy or stop it.
In developing marketing plans, Amaju needs to get the National Assembly to fast-track the process of abrogating Decree 101. Otherwise, he would face the frustration of getting the government or the minister to overturn juicy deals on spurious grounds, such as making Nigerian firms handle the projects.
There are several unexploited marketing windows in the NFF. Amaju must sit with the firm in charge and the marketing department to draw up a new roadmap for our football that would respect existing structures, even with the new deals to be struck.
The plank on which government apostles insist on its interference is that the NFF comes to it cup in hand for funds to run its activities. Sponsorship comes with good packages; Amaju should get people to repackage structures in our football that can attract more cash. He should, in the next six months tell Nigerians how much the NFF got from inter and intra club transfers in the last two years, perhaps in his first 100 days in office. He needs to establish what the revenue generating platforms at the Glasshouse are and ask how funds from such avenues were spent.
He should institute instruments that would make the Glasshouse chiefs more prudent. And this should start by ensuring that Nigerians are told yearly what the body received and what is left in the tilt. He should also publish the body’s audited accounts yearly to help improve its profile among corporate firms. It must be said that no firm would fund a corrupt organisation or one not open to laying its books for scrutiny.
Amaju, NFF presidency position isn’t a job. You have no business being at the Glasshouse every day. Learn to delegate functions. Some board meetings can be done online, now that majority of your members are literate. Get everyone at the NFF to work with timelines. Evaluate workers quarterly. Desist from making controversial statements in the media. Think through what you want to say. Always communicate through the NFF media department. On no account should board members arbitrarily talk to the media on NFF matters. These are some of the pitfalls in the NFF that make the president a laughing stock. Such utterances pitch the NFF against its critics, waiting to pull the body down.
NFF’s biggest brand is the Super Eagles. Prior to the Aminu Maigari-led board, the Eagles were derided as “Super Chicken,” a toga which made the brand worthless in the eye of potential investors. Indeed, with Eagles’ poor rating, it was difficult to get quality friendly games to help increase the NFF’s earnings to prosecute its activities independent of government cash.
Need I tell Amaju the benefits of a high rating for the Eagles and our chances of getting bigger countries to come to Nigeria for friendly games? We must stop the practice of the Eagles playing international friendlies outside Nigeria. It’s about time the Eagles played in Nigeria, to reawaken Nigerians’ interest in watching matches.
The Abuja National Stadium will be too small to for the crowd if we have the Eagles pitched against Portugal, with Cristiano Ronaldo playing. The same scenario would be the lot of the fans if the Eagles’ next game is against Argentina, with Lionel Messi and Di Maria featuring. These two matches are box offices.
Revenue from such matches will increase cash flow. Again, the new NFF board must stop this idea of paying players and coaches match bonuses for qualifiers – they ask and even hold us to ransome for appearance fees. We must emulate the Germans, who pay at the end of the exercise. For winning the World Cup, each German player got $370,000. This isn’t appearance fee. What it means is that the over $25 million that Germany will get from FIFA will serve as a form of revenue for the German FA. But, in Nigeria’s case, the players have already taken $3.8 million out whatever would be Nigeria’s earnings for participating at the Brazil 2014 World Cup. This rubbish must stop, if the NFF must remain solvent and self financing. Aside, Amaju must insist on the implementation of the Code of Conduct for the players and coaches. Our players have such rule books in their European clubs. No player dares to lead any revolt against his club management. I’m confident that Amaju will deliver on his promises to them.
After all, the Greeks donated their appearance fees to the government for building a hostel for national teams to prepare for international competitions. Most of the Germans donated their World Cup bounty to charity homes. Our players’ and coaches’ argument that NFF men will siphon the money is warp. This is one of the reasons why the NFF is always cash-strapped.
But what we see here is the penchant for playing games in London or in countries, whose entry visas are difficult to get. Put simply, NFF men have used their international matches to enrich their Nigerian passports with visas to prominent European countries and America.
Sadly, Amaju is coming to the Glasshouse to manage an Eagles side that is torn through its ranks by all-knowing coaches, who thrive in belittling our best players in the media, forgetting that such derisive comments put these boys in disadvantageous positions with their foreign clubs. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to Amaju that most of our big boys in the Eagles are taking their turns to lampoon their coaches in the media. This needless trend has further destroyed the Eagles, culminating in vindictive removal of star players who have an axe to grind with their coaches.
The Eagles are sixth in Africa. This is incredible at a time when we are the African champions. It is not enough to give the coaches the two games against Sudan to determine if their contracts will be renewed. Amaju must sit down with the coaches and insist on having our best players in Omdurman, whatever it will cost us to do so. Such pragmatic decisions are what we need to rescue the sinking Eagles.
The 24-man squad named for the two matches is laughable. It includes at least four new players, who may not have played in Africa before. One is not sure if the coaches considered the bad pitch and the prevailing humid weather in Sudan before picking some of those players. The battle of Omdurman is not an assignment for weaklings. It is a Trojan’s war and only our best players can secure a victory for us.
Amaju needs to contact our players to establish a relationship with them. Get them to trust you and key into your blueprints for the game. If Eagles fail to grab the qualification ticket to the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, you have failed. Nigerians will count it against you, even if your tenure inherited a house in commotion.
If the Eagles don’t beat Sudan at home, the return leg game won’t attract the fans to the stadium and no firm will buy any marketing activity, knowing that such an exercise would amount to winking in the dark. I also don’t think that the few big boys in the team will be interested in the return fixture, if we lose – God forbid – in Omdurman.
In renewing the coaches’ contracts, Amaju must insert extant clauses to curb some of their excesses. The coaches must see the NFF as their employers and not dictate to it. NFF must negotiate salary packages that it can pay. In the new contracts, the coaches must be told explicitly that all national invitations must be discussed with the technical committee before the list of players is released. We are in this mess today because Eagles’ coaches act as tin gods hiding under the cloak of being given a freehand to pick their players. They have failed us. They have used such lists to punish those who offend them to the detriment of the team. The shame is on Nigerians, if we don’t qualify for the next Africa Cup of Nations. Sadly, the coaches will dump us and still take one of the qualifiers to the tournament. It has happened before.
Enter the dragon
The headline of this sub column is the title of the late Bruce Lee’s popular film. And it aptly fits what we may experience when the Eagles reconvene for the “Battle of Sudan” next week, when Stephen Keshi meets with Emmanuel Emenike.
The media were awash with a report where the Eagles chief coach explained why he dropped Emmanuel Emenike from Nigeria’s starting line-up against Congo DR. In the report, the coach said that some members of the team were angry with Emenike’s conduct since his feat at the South Africa 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, which Nigeria won in Johannesburg on February 10.
Expectedly, Emenike has replied the coach and made several insinuations that could lead to his being dropped against Sudan. If this happens, we are doomed. Mark my word. Oba Khato Okpere, Ise!
