Tag: stick

Nigerian football needs a breath of fresh air. We need proactive approaches to resolve the problems. We need to apply scientific methods to formulate a new roadmap for the game and its actors. Except we take drastic measures against fraudsters who have brought the game to disrepute, novel changes meant to give it the desired fillip will melt away like ice-cream under the scorching sun.

Football is big business in countries which understand its dynamics as the largest vehicle for employment. No aspect of football is wasted – from players who graduate to coaches and others in other facets of the industry.

Imagine the volume of artisans who make the stadium a beauty to behold and those who manage the players – as physicians, doctors, dieticians and physiotherapists; bus drivers, gatemen et al. How about the mammoth crowd that watch games? How about those who bet in the pools, casinos, lottery, etc? We should not lose sight of the insurers, those who exploit the various marketing windows in the game to make the billions that attract the stars, who lure the fans to match venues. How about those who rely on the incomes made by players, coaches and officials for their upkeep, not forgetting the domestic staff of these people? The chain is endless, depending on how profitable it is to the practitioners. Football is a huge money spinner- if effectively utilised.

So, why is the game trouble in Nigeria? We have made it a platform for settling political jobbers who would do anything to remain relevant, even if it means destroying the game to stop others from exposing their inadequacies. Our football is run without a discerning template, largely because sports ministers and commissioners ensure that only their lackeys get into key positions at the national and state levels. These lickspittles around ministers, commissioners and high ranking officials in government cause all the confusion that attracts FIFA’s interventions, especially after every World Cup. We spend quality time trying to resolve the mess such that we enter a new term always rebuilding our teams. Gains acquired from previous expeditions are lost on the altar of change even where the previous order had tremendous achievements.

Officials see the football federations as an avenue to siphoning government cash since accounts are never rendered. Whenever a team wins a trophy, it is assumed that money was well spent. And so, these officials ensure that quantum cash is splashed on the game but they don’t create structures that can make the game run seamlessly without government funding in the long term.

With ill-equipped men running the game, nothing works because they are thinking of when the next tranch of government cash will come. As the different tiers of government, officials are willing to splash the cash to serve as a distraction from the ills of the society. Of course, when Nigeria is doing well in football, everything is taken for granted. It is the opium of the people.

We are feeling the pain now because our jaded style cannot outfox other countries that have applied science in trying to rejuvenate their game. And the biggest calamity before us is the absence of the Super Eagles at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations slated to hold in Equatorial Guinea from January 17.

We must move. And it starts with changing the way we do things here. Thank goodness NFF President Melvin Amaju Pinnick has set the ball rolling, sending referees and other key managers of the game on a refresher course in England. They are back and singing new tunes. It means that they learnt some lessons, but can they implement the ideas acquired in England. They can if the supervisory body (NFF) has the guts to take drastic decisions against

defaulters. We must stop playing politics with key aspects of the game, if we must attain the heights where Nigeria would be default winners of big soccer tournaments like our age-grade teams.

Amaju has vowed to investigate, blacklist and prosecute erring referees who bring the game into disrepute. The best security in any game is the presence of unbiased referees who are ready to interpret the laws of the game to the best of their knowledge. But Amaju must ensure that the referees get the right environment to handle the game properly. Match venues must be adequately secured with security operatives whose loyalty mustn’t be to any of the participating teams.

Hoodlums caught disturbing public peace at match venues should be arrested, charged to court and punished for their unsportsmanlike conducts. Such punitive measures help in convincing soccer-loving Nigerians to leave their homes to watch the domestic league games the way the throng viewing centres for European matches shown on big screen television sets.

The influx of fans into the stadia brings increased revenue for the clubs to settle their players and officials’ bills. No player or official can give his best during matches on empty stomachs. And when the matches are exciting, with winners emerging from their performance on the pitch and not on pre-determined acts from the referees, the corporate firms and wealthy individual would want to identify their goods and services with the clubs of their choice.

Of significant importance is the recent trip of some coaches to England for refresher courses, which I know would improve the quality of matches in the local league. There is the need to challenge the NFF and indeed the League Management Committee (LMC) to ensure that games are shown live to Nigerians in as many television stations willing to pay the requisite cash for such coverage. Such games should be shown repeatedly, as it is done in Europe. Erring referees would even be ashamed of themselves when their relations and friends call them over their shoddy handling of matches.

My worry here is what we will do with the new discoveries when we get things right. I must state here that most European clubs thrive on cash earned from inter and intra club transfers. I shudder each time I hear Nigerian teams cry over inadequate funding. Yet there is a yearly mass movement of players among clubs here and in Europe.

The NFF must insist on due process in the transfer of our players. This way, they would be able to keep tabs on our best. Our players must be encouraged to join teams outside Nigeria not on bent knees like most of these shylock agents and scouts present them but on the basis of their outstanding performances in our national teams.

Interestingly, FIFA has outlawed third party ownership of players. This gives the NFF, for instance, the power to only issue International Transfer Certificates (ITC) to our players after scrutinising the documents that they have signed.

Part of the problems of our players is their limited education. There is also the urge for fast cash, having been playing the game at the local scene either on empty stomachs or delayed salaries.

Last week, I wrote about the shenanigans in the transfer process here. Thankfully, the Emen Eduok case will help the NFF discover some of the loopholes that greedy agents and scouts exploit to enslave our players in obscure leagues in Europe and the Diaspora.

I’m glad that the NFF president expelled Eduok from the Eagles camp. Being in camp is the peg that most unscrupulous agents and scouts use in luring gullible players out of the country. The next step is to find out who took him to those places. Eduok is also culpable for failing to inform the new club that he had signed a deal already.

The NFF and the LMC need to educate the domestic league players on the need to read documents presented to them before appending their signatures.  Both must start this campaign by insisting on seeing what each player has signed with all the 20 Globacom Premier League teams.

Every club must have a legal department that would make it impossible for any irritant player to sneak out of the country to fall into the kind of trap Uduok may have found himself. Perhaps, if the Nigerian club had a concrete contract with Eduok, it could nullify what the greedy agent lured him into because it can be tendered in court.

Youth clubs and their managers should be told that their players don’t attract transfer fees. Youth academies are only entitled to developmental fees for discovering such talents, with the acceptable figures stipulated by FIFA.

Thumbs down for Amokachi

Psychology is one of the greatest tools of warfare to motivate people to give their best. Leaders urge their followers not to be scared of the opposition but to follow their strategies. So, when the leader starts to instill fear in the led and surrenders even before the first salvo is fired, such a leader ought to be sacked.

Daniel Amokachi has failed the first test of coaching the Super Eagles by raising the alarm over players he wants to use to prosecute two friendly games against Cote D’Ivoire and Sudan. Amokachi has been all over the media complaining about the boys’ fitness and telling anyone who cares to listen that the team is Stephen Keshi’s not his. If Amokachi isn’t sure of his players, he should just opt out of the two matches.

Amokachi must be told that Nigerians are not fools. They know that friendly games are meant to expose new players even though it is also appropriate that a team wins matches. Nigerians know that home-based Eagles can beat the Ivorians, if the coaches tell them what to do. If they don’t, soccer fans would be interested in watching out for the new stars. They also would love to see how the coaches have been able to integrate the age-grade players into the senior team.

Soccer fans are not enthusiastic about the outcome of the two friendlies meant to rebuild the Eagles. Many are still ruing Nigeria’s exit from the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.