In this concluding part of our interview with incumbent Warri Wolves CEO and former Chairman of the Nigerian Premier League (NPL), Davidson Owumi, he opens up fully on the faces and forces behind his short reign as chairman of the NPL four years ago. He speaks with Taiwo Alimi on how he ditched professional football in Spain for a local side, Enugu Rangers. It is as usual, revealing and interesting. Excerpts….
Love for local clubs
I love Nigerian clubs and I get very angry when I see our people wearing shirts of all these foreign clubs. I believe that charity should begin from home. Those guys develop their brands to what you see today and I think that Nigerians should first of all embrace their local clubs. I have Rangers as my local team and now that I am managing Warri Wolves I have to shift allegiance to Warri wolves, but even at that, I still have passion for Rangers. It is like Warri Wolves is my home team and out of me there is another local club, Rangers, to support. So, before I waste my emotion on these two teams and now think about another in a far away country, my passion for football would have been long exhausted. But give and take, whenever Manchester United are playing I love to watch them, in spite of their current fumbling, I still love them as a fan. That is the point of being a fan; in whatever situation you stick with them.
Rayo Vallecano to Rangers
Talking about my stints abroad, I would start with Greece. I played in Greece and the thing about football is that if you are unfortunate to fall into the hands of the wrong manager, it is a problem. When I moved to Spain to play for Rayo Vallecano from Greece under the same manager, I was presented with a contract of 75 percent to 25 percent. That is 25 for me and 75 for my manager, all in the name of playing professional football abroad. Maybe because I was educated, I refused to be frustrated under the slavish contract. After six months, I could not stomach it again and I told my manager that I couldn’t do it again and that I was returning to my country. This is slavish. But some Nigerians in the name of playing professional football abroad would stay there and waste their prime time away. That contract alone would not make me play well. So I came back to Nigeria and signed for Rangers. And when I got back home, that bold step paid off because Rangers was the beginning of my success story in football.
Stephen Keshi
In all honesty, I would say kudos to Keshi for having the wellness of mind to approach this issue of home and foreign-based players. Coincidentally, l was in camp with Keshi prior to the 1994 World Cup. (Clemens) Westerhof and Bonfrere (Johannes) were in charge of the team and Keshi saw that some of us in the local league were integrated into the team. Although we were not given the same opportunity, the mere fact that you were in the team gave you that mind of belonging. The likes of Dan Amokachi, Finidi George, Uche Okechukwu and I all came from the local league then. And that was the philosophy of Westerhof and it succeeded. So it would have been foolhardy on the part of Keshi to tread another path.
The only other area I want him to modify his style is to further comb the grassroots. Westerhof at that time was coming to league matches. He did not have to send his assistants. Keshi and the other team handlers can spread themselves to local venues. It is not only stars you need to see but potential stars. You can watch grassroots teams, even at the state divisions and spot a talent. If you don’t go and watch them and depend on calls from your scouts and coaches, then you will be depriving hundreds of potential players for the Super Eagles. The NFF (Nigeria Football Federation) should so empower him, because he won’t use his own money so that week in week out he can go to league venues. If Enyimba is playing Rangers today, the national team coach must be there. That is exactly what Keshi’s counterpart in England is doing; every game you will see him at one league point. You don’t depend entirely on recommendation because if you do you won’t take the very best. And that would not give the best mirror of the Nigerian league. It is when you comb the nooks and corners of the country that you will see the very best of Nigerian league.
World Cup
Football is not mathematics but on paper you would say Nigeria will walk through Iran and Bosnia Herzegovina. But the game proper is a different ball game. It is about those who can utilise the available chances they have in 90 minutes or given duration of play. Football is played within a particular length and breadth of a space guided by 90 minutes. So if you are able to utilise this space effectively within 90 minutes, whether you are Brazil, Serbia or Spain, if you are not able to utilise that space within 90 minutes, you will be defeated and nothing will happen. It is also played between 11 men and 11 men. And one mistake can cost a team.
So I am not used to predicting the outcome of games, but let our players be in the right frame of mind. Any result you get in the first game boosts your confidence and which is an essential ingredient in competition like the World Cup. They can now build on that. If there is no complacency, they can graduate from there and proceed in the competition. Let us also concentrate on taking one game at a time. All matches should be treated like it is the most important game.
Special dish
Rice, plantain with coke
NPL Chairmanship
It was very easy to get me out. It was an organised crime against football. But I thank God that today every person that was involved in that orchestrated design are now fighting themselves. One, I stepped into a terrain that mortals would fear to tread. Where NFF and NPL chairmen always fear to tread; Title sponsorship. That was the area I got into. That was when I knew that football is very important to this country. I was summoned to Aso Rock to voice my opinion and thereafter I was asked to go in peace. Government understood football matters and in fairness to them the football house was asked to deal with it accordingly. The battlefield was now shifted to Akwa Ibom, where the NFF came out with that their judgement. And I tell you what happened in Uyo is still haunting Nigerian football till date. I do not have any enemy because I have settled with every one of them and I have forgiven them. I have moved on since then, but whether football would forgive them is what I don’t know.
I went into an election according to the statute governing the Premier League, as handed over by the NFF. We did screening. There was a petition and a body was set up to look into it and it was found out to be rubbish and thrown out. Then the matter went to the Appeals Committee, which is the final in football matters, as stated by FIFA. In the Appeals Committee they lost. Then it was like ‘no, this Owumi has to leave’ and so they conjured one Ibidapo Obe from nowhere and imagine a professor of law does not know there is a statute stating clearly how football matters should be handled and this is not one of them. So, because of Owumi, they circumvented their own rules and statutes, all to get Owumi out. But in Emeka Inyama’s case, they wanted to do the same thing to him, but the judge, a more respected person that was appointed as the arbitrator, told them that this matter cannot be handled otherwise since the man has gone through the hurdles as stated in the statutes. They were saying that I was not a chairman of a club, so tell me how many chairmen are voted for in Nigerian football? How many people are going by the appellation of Chairman of board? But a lot of them that are involved in that shame, justice has caught up with them. The law of Karma has caught up with them. It is just like the four way test; do onto others what you want them to do to you. It is a lesson for all of us. The issue is over but the traces would never die. Everything they did in 2010 is still there. The court cases are still there. It all started from there. So if you want to solve a problem, you trace back to where it all started. All the court cases today are a product of 2010. Until they go back, I’m not saying they should make me chairman of NPL but go back and correct all these mistakes statutorily and make it a uniform law that is sacrosanct and no matter whose ox is gored should not be circumvented. That is the only way that there would be peace in Nigerian football.
