In the past few weeks, a lot of innovations have been introduced to the domestic league at the elite class which would bring out the best performances from the coaches and players depending on the models used to make it devoid of sharp practices. I have tried to find out who introduced the concept of throwing the gates open to the fans, especially during big games involving bitter rivals.
It occurred to me that most times this strange arrangement is done when State Governors, the real owners of the clubs, want to score cheap political points by attending the home matches of their teams. The unfortunate aspect of this riotous act is that the governors would have departed the stadium when the overcrowded stadium dovetails into a stampede as the fans exit the premises through a few opened gates. What an irony!
Fans who are allowed free entrance into the stadium, suddenly find out that a few of those gates thrown open have been shut, an act which by itself serves as the basis for a stampede after the game has ended. It gets worse when the 50 security operatives are stretched to their wit’s end and would as a matter of last resort use their canister of tear gas to disperse the riotous fans.
The questions to be asked include who owns the game? State Governors, the league organisers, or the NFF?
No firm would do business with the league clubs if the Governors held sway in the team’s optics during games. Firms target their products and services towards the consumers, many of who constitute the fan base of clubs around the country. Clubs should start planning their operations from the business hub in a bid to become solvents in the future. This seasonal cap-in-hand mentality should stop. All outlets for getting internally generated revenues such as getting the fans to pay to watch games must be exploited to their maximum capacity.
Another worrying aspect of the league is the handshake with distinguished guests, especially the governors. An abuse of platform. Interruptions in European matches are usually symbolic and are more of celebrations of icons or the death of key functionaries in the game or at specific. I would need to scratch my head until blood flows to think of a time when we saw a European game with a guest of honour handshake. A minute silence for the dead and/or the spontaneous clapping at specific times. For instance in the 57th minute, where the fans are actively involved.
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Pray, did our football chieftains watch the colourful entrance of some of Spain’s medallists at the 2024 Paralympic Games onto Real Madrid’s pitch clutching their medals with everyone in the stadium, both sides’ players including clapping ceaselessly to honour the physically challenged athletes shortly before the game against Villarreal. Not agbada-wearing politicians and a few jesters peddling influence around the governors.
Such epochal events lift up the spirit of the masses and further inspire the physically challenged to give their best in all that they partake in.
Indeed, viewers of the game on television shouldn’t be surprised if commentators say some of the boys in any Nigerian side to big competitions are products of big European clubs. In such climes, it is like second nature for big teams to have youth teams from ages six to 20, who are grilled throughout the season like their senior sides. Aside, from grooming them, these clubs register them for age-grade competitions in their countries. It isn’t a case of using them as training materials.
The serious-minded soccer nations expose players from academies who also have the template to monitor those who did well and have juicy packages in big clubs in Europe, the Americas, and the Diaspora. 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.
The beauty of this system is that it also provides a platform for coaches to be trained and retrained on how to handle kids until adulthood. Many of these coaches end up specialising in training young ones. They won’t be persuaded to handle clubs since they enjoy doing the job. It is, therefore, easy for these countries to name age-grade teams’ coaches, not by guesswork or sentiments but by their achievements in the local competitions in such countries. This academy system ensures that players’ data are accurate. They are stored and used in subsequent editions as the players grow.
Going to Europe has become a fad for young boys. They are gullible, especially those who are allowed to leave their homes unchecked. Their absence from home means less people to feed. In some cases, these young men associate with evil-minded people and become a threat to family members.
Our young boys are wasting away in Europe in the name of seeking to play professional football. That is okay. But they never follow the designated paths simply because we like doing things our way. All it takes for anyone to be a football coach or manager is to bounce the ball in any open field. Kids will swarm the place like bees. Sadly, some of these venues of fraud are located in schools, yet principals and parents don’t bother to find out if such coaches or managers are recognised under the law.
The problem with administering sports in Nigeria rests with the fact that those who eventually get the jobs lack the capacity to see through the desired changes being envisaged for the industry. Yes, people learn on the job and perfect their trades. But those who run sports in the country always choose to flex muscles for simple exercises which are easily resolved by looking for what the laws provide for. One isn’t surprised, considering the pedigree of those who influenced their appointments for the jobs.
Otherwise, how do you explain a setting where club owners who claim to be experts in the administration of league football don’t know the body recognised by FIFA to administer the game here? The truth is that NFF holds the game in trust for FIFA with all the rules and regulations in the confines of the Dankaro House’s chieftains in Abuja.
