League Management Company (LMC) board members should be worried by the negative reports surrounding the domestic game.
If they aren’t, this column should serve as a reminder that the roof has fallen on their heads, leaving them with one option – to vacate the place. The myriad of problems bedevilling the league are such that the participants are alleging gross dereliction of duties, with particular reference to officiating of matches.
Footages of scenes where referees’ decisions have left much to be desired are in the social media, making us the laughing stock in the polity of soccer nations. Shouldn’t LMC chiefs be thinking of buying the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) machines in all venues to reduce the complaints about decisions?
Three weeks ago, in the game between Yobe Desert Stars and Akwa United in Damaturu, the match officials’ hotel was invaded by some roughnecks who came to collect N1 million, which they said was given to them to throw the game in the home team’s favour. It didn’t happen because Akwa United held their ground against the hosts, winning by a lone goal. Ordinarily, such disturbing action should have troubled the LMC to take a decisive action, first by calling a press conference to either deny the act or tell us how they intend to tackle the allegations.
Nothing has been heard about the matter. In fact, the shameful act in Damaturu smacks of match fixing, bribery where the givers and receivers should be punished as it represents a bad citation of how winners and losers emerge. It is shocking that the organisers didn’t consider the ease with which the hoodlums got to the match officials a threat to their lives, not to talk of the guerrilla setting in which the N1 million was retrieved. Perhaps, if the urchins’ motive was to maim or kill the match officials, they would have been dead (God forbid), with no one held accountable. The danger is that others are watching to see if LMC chiefs will act, lest it becomes the norm for dealing with referees in other centres, even if it means using it to blackmail them.
And so when the Edo State Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu expressed his disappointment with match officials’ handling of matches involving Bendel Insurance, most critics felt he was crying wolf. But, footages of the three matches which Shaibu complained about have shown clearly that he wasn’t being emotional, especially as the results didn’t favour his side. Not a few accepted that referees erred in their judgment. In fact, many have commended Shaibu’s efforts to take them out of the stadium unhurt. Some other government officials would have stormed out of the stadium in anger, leaving the referees vulnerable to crowd violence.
Those who kicked against Shaibu’s role in Bendel Insurance as a player must do a rethink. Had Shaibu not been a player who chose to relate with his boys after the game, another carnage would have been recorded at the University of Benin Sports Complex, and not for the first time due to poor officiating.
Late last year, Shaibu prevented a mayhem inside the Agege Stadium, Lagos, when the security back-up officials called him to save a dicey situation. Shaibu left the stadium after a peaceful 1-1 draw between Bendel Insurance and Spartans FC of Lagos. But things took a turn for the worst when some urchins deflated the tyres of the Benin side’s media bus and supporters’ clubs’ buses. Hell was let loose. The deputy governor’s return to the stadium normalised the situation. I digress.
Shaibu said: “When Kwara United came here, we scored a clean goal but the referee disallowed it on the ground that it was an offside goal. Just last weekend, the same scenario occurred against us in Akure when we played Sunshine Stars but the goal was allowed to stand. Today, again, we have scored another beautiful goal and it has been ruled offside.
“I think we are going to discontinue with the league than continue to allow this type of officiating to mar our games. We got a clean goal against Kwara. When the video was reviewed, it was adjudged a clean goal but we were not awarded the points.’’
“If they defeat us we don’t care but cannot continue like this. If the LMC refuses to probe the Kwara United match, the Sunshine Stars match and this one against Rivers United, we are going to discontinue playing in the league,” Shaibu warned after the match.
If you ask Shaibu about Bendel Insurance leaving the league, he will laugh it off, knowing he spoke on the spur of the moment. It is, however, important to remind the organisers that with the prevalent decline in resources, it will be difficult to get sponsors to bankroll the team, if government hands off funding. Bendel Insurance had been in the wilderness for about 11 or 12 years, until the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration gave it a new lease of life, leading to its promotion to the elite class this season.
Cynics who rant that the corporate world will do football business, only if government quits funding it, seem to forget for anything to attract blue-chip firms, it must command a price, it must be a credible brand and it must be beneficial to their corporate needs. It is important to note that shareholders must key into the project before the actualisation of this dream. Indeed, no business concern will connect its goods or services to projects that are enmeshed in controversies and allegations of sharp practices.
What the Obaseki-led administration is doing is to build the Bendel Insurance FC brand before taking it to the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) where the required indices for its sale are formulated and passed into law. Otherwise, a new administration will come and revoke what is being done, if it isn’t backed by any law. Ultimately, the Obaseki-led government will offer Bendel Insurance FC to the business world for sale as part of the government’s long term plans for it.
Giving the business of running Bendel Insurance to his deputy, shows clearly that the governor wants to repackage the product which will be the beautiful bride of the corporate world at the Stock Exchange.
The LMC should provide the enabling environment for the game to thrive. It is the only way the corporate world can be interested in the business. When big spenders such as the government-owned teams, complain of little things, such as poor officiating is shameful. LMC should, therefore, look for a sponsor to bankroll all the activities of the match officials before, during and after matches.
LMC chiefs put the match officials in precarious positions when the host clubs take care of all their expenditures. Some dubious clubs will seize the opportunity to influence them. Pundits are worried that LMC hasn’t done anything to Yobe Desert Stars, whose fans recovered the cash from the match officials. If we can exonerate the referees for doing their jobs, leading to Akwa United’s victory, the same can’t be said of the club which gave them the cash. It is a criminal offence which is match-fixing.
It may interest LMC men to know that Tanzanian referee Oden Charles Mbaga was banned from football for life after he was found guilty of taking bribes, according to FIFA. In a statement, the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee said Mbaga had also been fined CHF200,000 (£151,000/$200,000/€176,000). FIFA did not reveal details, but confirmed the Tanzanian official had breached the bribery article of the 2009 edition of the governing body’s ethics code. This is a body that works. No sentiments when it has to do with dealing with infractions on its rules.
The scams surrounding the league are shameful. Pundits are worried that nobody knows what the league is worth. Organisers can’t tell us how much they have realised from inter and intra club transfers of players? This is the biggest revenue earner for most lucrative leagues in the world. Contracts between clubs and their players are worthless. In fact, a popular league team’s owners were shocked to hear that players they paid monthly weren’t theirs and couldn’t earn revenue from any of them being scouted by European clubs.
One wonders what the organisers show to prospecting firms willing to do business with them? Would it not have been better showing them recorded programmes of the league to appreciate what they stand to gain in a partnership? Will firms be excited to associate their brands with the game when the benefits of such unions are not documented? I’m sure the organisers dare not show games where referees are battered. They also won’t show videos of crowd violence with fans running through teargas.
So, what is the domestic league’s Unique Selling Point?
