The finer lines of Nigeria soccer would be defined by how well the domestic league is organised, the league’s adherence to the tenets of the label club licensing rule, and the existence of timelines for the set goals and objectives of the competition itself. If it means running the league with between five to 12 teams participating this fresh season, why not? There can’t be a league if there are no players and coaches in the employment of teams to fight for honours for each team.
It says a lot about the rudderless platforms in which the league in the country is organised such that Nigeria is the only nation in the world whose 2021/2022 season hasn’t ended with the AITEO Cup competition still at the semi-finals stage.
Nigeria will lose the advantage gained in having our league run in tandem with other leagues. Our domestic clubs will suffer when other leagues’ transfer windows open. The good ones in our league will sneak out for trials and deplete their teams. Teams will be weakened by the absence of their stars and quality of play. Of course, if the fans are dissatisfied with what they see, they won’t return to watch subsequent matches.
For the records, the AITEO Cup is the country’s oldest football competition hitherto known as the Challenge Cup, a lever because of its thrills and frills coupled with its shocking results.
It is heartbreaking to note that the Challenge Cup which was a major platform where all manner of teams rolled up their stockings to give the established clubs a run for their monies. The argument can be held that it is the duty of the NFF to organise the Challenge Cup. But the flipside to this argument is to ask where the football clubs in the country are and what exactly the NFF Second Vice President says about the domestic clubs and how engaged they are with local competitions.
With the delay, our players with good potential have lost two transfer windows to seek for greener pastures, as they say, due to the ineptitude of those who organise the domestic league. Should such people be allowed to remain in the place? Certainly not. When our league ends sometime in September, countries with clear-sighted administrators would be deep in the domestic games to allow our boys to train with them.
Players and coaches will be roaming the cities, condemned to playing the game in their neighbourhoods, particularly on school grounds with improvised facilities. Shylock agents will be prancing waiting to lure the weak-hearted among them into slavish contracts outside the country. These shylocks need not wait for long because the players would soon be hungry if they aren’t already.
The real causalities are the country’s representatives at the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) inter-club competitions. Those who will also feel the pang are the country’s flag bearers in CAF and FIFA U-20, U-23 and Super Eagles because our boys will be match rusty.
The pre-season media blitz which we have seen in Europe till September 1, when the transfer window closed as it concerns players’ movements heightens the awareness among clubs’ fans, such that everyone is eager to know what to expect and make frantic bids to secure their tickets in a request to watch their idols.
The fans’ debates help to convince the business sector to inject cash into the European leagues, knowing that they can connect with the masses to sell their products and services seamlessly. This crucial marketing activity rubs off handsomely on the clubs. It also creates competition among brands which eventually think of windows where they can identify with the global brand- soccer. It is difficult in Nigeria because those who own the property prefer to use middlemen not because they are better bargainers, but because they can strike shady deals with them easily. This trend continues because we have failed to probe funds pumped into sports. This lapse has emboldened others to fill their pockets and impoverish the players and coaches, who should benefit the most.
Globally, club football thrives on several marketing windows that increase the cash flow for all the participants. Such windows are title sponsorship rights, television rights, official insurers, official kitting firms, official beverage firms, official water firms, agencies responsible for the billboards and other boards that carry the message of the game to the public.
These windows serve as one of the ways of generating revenue. Cash realised from these marketing ventures is declared at the end of the season, such that clubs know what to expect from each window to drive their transfer sales even before their proprietors pull out their chequebooks. I laugh when people say that our clubs are cash-strapped. I wonder if anyone has asked those who manage government clubs how much they make from selling our players in inter and intra-club transfers? Do we really care? If we do, many people who run these clubs will be in jail. We need this therapy to instil the fear of God in our administrators.
The sale of players in the transfer period is a bonanza for many clubs that groom rookies and a drain on the purse for those who thrive on splashing the cash on new players annually. Sport isn’t leisure anymore. It is a serious business used by countries which appreciate its power to pull the youth away from social vices, to change people’s perception of their countries, as a recreation platform for its citizens and as a veritable means for its populace to improve their health.
Sport originates from the people through the communities with the products of such an enterprise emerging as ambassadors for the country in international competitions. All that the government does is to provide the enabling environment for the industry to thrive. Since the ultimate target of the corporate world is the citizen, it follows therefore that sport gets the needed fillip for growth when the athletes become big stars in the world. This seamless setting also ensures that only technocrats are recruited to drive the process, such that it is free of scams and controversies that would chase away the blue-chip industries which are ready to provide the financial support for growth. Our administrators blame the media for highlighting the flaws of establishments, forgetting that there isn’t another way to report the truth. With a dysfunctional league spanning 32 years, we are left with lazy option of looking towards Europe in search of players, including the invitation of an European-based U-17 women’s player. What a pity. No nurseries for identifying, training and gradual exposure to competitions, there won’t growth.
Nigeria shouldn’t be parading teams for international competitions with 29 foreign-based Super Eagles, with only a few homegrown here. No wonder when the country’s anthem is being sung before kickoff, they all keep mute. They aren’t propelled by the wordings of an anthem they can’t recite. It explains the slowness with which they prosecute matches. Check out the way other countries sing along when their anthems are being played and the way each player jumps high as if to reach the skies on the spot as if they have been injected with super adrenalin. It is always the difference between Nigerian teams and our opponents. It means a lot to this writer when our international players are ashamed of wearing wristbands of Nigeria’s green-white-green before our matches.
Each time I watch Sadio Mane and other Africans wearing wristbands in their countries’ colours, I always feel the tinge of nationalism they want to project about their countries. Papa Bouba Diop – Senegal legend and former Portsmouth and Fulham midfielder – died at the age of 42 and Liverpool’s spitting cobra, El Hadji Diouf wore the country’s colours around their wrists, not forgetting how they celebrated when they won trophies everywhere they played in Europe.
Do our administrators not see or observe this trend among Africans in Europe? This culture is engrained in the hearts and minds of other nationals right from their youth days. I wonder if ours don’t see what others are doing? Food for thought.