The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) officials are confused people as epitomised in the ridicule surrounding the minutes of the body’s Annual General Assembly (AGA). Thrice, the communiqué released stating what transpired at the meeting had to be corrected with no significant change noticed. What it showed clearly was that anything in that communiqué wasn’t cast in stone – typical of all the decisions by the Federation in the past.
Dear reader, how best can anyone describe wastefulness than with these examples. A few federation chieftains knew that even with a loss to Sao Tome (God forbid) Nigeria had already qualified for the next Africa Cup of Nations slated to hold in Cote d’Ivoire in January. Yet, the federation’s members watched with mouths agape as a Coach insisted on inviting 23 foreign-based players for a game against Sao Tome.
Here is the waste in this decision. Having beaten Sao Tome at home in the first leg by 10-0, it was obvious that we were no mates and that was the need to field the country’s Team B players largely populated with home-based players with our best six foreign-based players. This federation didn’t think so. It allowed a journeyman coach to fly in 23 professionals from Europe on business class. Besides, each of these players would be paid $200 daily allowances. For beating Sao Tome 6-0, each of these players went back with $5000 as winning bonus. Please don’t do the arithmetic because it would run into between N360 million and N500 million at the going market rate of the dollar, likely at N900 per dollar? What else to do we call these kind of expenditures if the federation had the option of inviting 20 players who wouldn’t spend up to N8 million as their return tickets to save cost.
Is the federation saying that Sao Tome would have beaten our home-based players with what they displayed in Uyo last Sunday? Tell any home-based player that he would be paid $5,000 after 90 minutes, he would grab his telephone and multiply N900 by $ 5000. He will die on the pitch knowing how his life would be transformed after the game. What a country where wasting cash is a way of life.
NFF chieftains shortly before the commencement of the last Women’s World Cup roundly condemned the head coach of the Super Falcons Randy Waldrum and recommended the immediate sack of the American tactician even after the country exited from the competition. Forty-eight hours after the federation’s Annual General Assembly (AGA), the NFF members woke up from their slumber and suddenly realised that the Super Falcons had an Olympic Games qualifier against Ethiopia. What shocked many were the praises showered on Waldrum which put a lie on what was written about him on Sunday to the consternation of followers of the game.
“We have given the Technical Committee the go-ahead to hold talks with Randy Waldrum as we consider an extension of his current contract with the NFF. They have to do this quickly as the team has a Women’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match next week.
“The man has done well by leading the team to an impressive outing at the FIFA World Cup,” NFF President, Ibrahim Musa Gusau, said on Tuesday. Really, Presido. When did you realise these attributes about Waldrum? Dear President, would be fair to credit Waldrum with the changes in the Super Falcons without acknowledging the technical savvy and support Dr. Terry Eguaoje brought into the team. Until Eguaoje joined the Falcons, they had acquired the losing toga, having lost their last seven games. Eguaoje has double Doctorate degrees in Education. He is an Adjunct Professor at Universities in America and is currently, the Technical Director of Coaching Education for the Pennsylvania West Soccer Association – State FA to US Soccer Federation. He also is a Coach Educator and Instructor Educator for the US Soccer Federation – basically, he trains the coaches. Hello NFF, flaunt what Waldrum has? Currently NFF Consultant on Coaching and Development. He was the Super Eagles- Assistant coach and Match Analyst during AFCON in Cameroon.
At the Women’s World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, Eguaoje functioned as the Super Falcons – Assistant coach and Match Analyst.
Except the NFF men are economical with the truth, they know that Waldrum didn’t want to see his Nigerian assistants and told them to their faces. The drafting of Eguaoje did the magic because Waldrum knew his abilities and capacity to train soccer teams having been taught by Eguaoje in one of the coaching courses at the American Soccer Federation
What would they tell Waldrum who is still being owed at least some months’ salaries and didn’t benefit from the $10,000 largesse from the First Lady who would have gladly rewarded the American if he was at the State House in Abuja? A coach your federation described as incompetent. The coach insisted that the federation should account for how they spent FIFA’s $960,000 meant to prepare the Super Falcons for the last Women’s World Cup competition which was co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.
Like Nigeria, England had problems with their players, coaches and officials who were being owed some cash. They have sorted the mater. Not so, with federation members who lost the biggest chance to get the top players who were still in the country to meet with the First Lady Distinguished Senator Oluremi Tinubu at a scheduled meeting with the girls. Instead, NFF chose to allow the big girls such as Assisat Oshoala, Rashedat Ajibade et al to meet their state governors to avert any drama which the girls could have caused.
The hierarchy of the federation would have used that reception to get the girls to reveal all their problems to the First Lady who would quickly resolve their problems and set a workable template which would have prevented a recurrence of such problems in the next eight years.
NFF missed the biggest opportunity to establish a direct link to the First Lady who would have taken adequate steps to get most of her friends, the public and private sectors to key into the women’s football crusade for the good of the game. The NFF chose to populate the reception with members and their staff, leaving the main actors in their different states.
A fundraiser spearheaded by the First Lady would have reinvigorated the beautiful game for the girls, especially at the 774 Local Government Areas in the country. The cash realised would have been used to create women’s football leagues and raise awareness among parents to allow the girl-child to play football, using the girls in the Super Falcons as the point of contact for change. Whenever the girls played at the Women’s World Cup Nigerians stayed awake to watch the girls. What the women’s game needs here in Nigeria is a credible face to convince the corporate world to identify their goods and services with the game by way of sponsorship. Pity, NFF has wasted this golden chance.
Sport is a big deal. It unites nations and enchants people. Besides, it has a global appeal, pulling fans and sponsors in a unique force that impacts positively on businesses and health. These positives can best be evaluated when the government has a template that makes it possible for businesses and philanthropists to key into the nation’s vision for sports.
Governments of sports-loving nations entice businesses with relief packages, such as tax rebates on their investments in sports. Given sports’ global appeal, governments effectively utilise the platform as their public relations tool to change people’s perceptions of their entities. Grassroots development can be actualised through the hosting of international and continental sporting events. Most countries use these big competitions to woo the blue-chip industries to identify with sports. Besides, these competitions open up the hinterland with the facilities constructed creating jobs in the locality. The facilities would attract the villagers to learn the games and, inadvertently, improve their health.
Big sports competitions generate revenue, create jobs, improve financial bases and provide the best opportunity for foreigners to have first-hand interaction with Nigerians. Such competitions improve tourism, a sure money spinner. Need I state the benefit that business concerns will gain from the volume of foreign exchange during such competitions?
It, therefore, aches to note that we have hosted big competitions in the past and have been unable to convince the corporate world about the gains of such events largely because no government has bothered to ask the organisers what went down and what we gained – this is what economists call Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA). Facilities built for such competitions are rotting away. In some cases, the equipment has been vandalised with nobody made to pay for it. The exit of one minister sparks off fresh crises from losers in the last administration. That has been the trend. This setting makes it impossible for the corporate world to identify with sports since no one would want to associate its products and services with people who are not credible.
