It was really shameful that
our countries representatives in the CAF competition all crashed out and failed
to advance to the money spinning stage, but perhaps this loss should galvanize
the football authorities to chart a new way forward for the development of football
in the country.
And for a start, there
is definitely the need to focus on improving the Nigerian football league; especially
the administration and management of our clubs. The near and never syndrome of
these our clubs in African competitions should be a worry to Nigeria football
federation. We must go back to the drawing board and find out what exactly we
must have to do in terms of getting it right..
If you would recall ;
Enyimba fc of Aba have won the CAF champions league on two occasions (in 2003/2004 )
Have we ever stopped to ask how Enyimba fc achieve this feat ?
How did it go wrong ?
here is some of my realities:
Out of twenty clubs
presently in the country’s premier league, 18 belong to the states government.
This obviously does not augur well for the development of Nigerian football as
these clubs are seen as parastatals of the government. Indeed, government needs
to divest from the ownership of football clubs in the country and concentrate
on developing the facilities for the beautiful game. This is what is obtained
in developed leagues of Africa, Europe and America.
Our football must be
handed over to sound administrators not just politicians; administrators who
have a stake in the game of football for the love of the game and not for
financial gratifications. If you study how Enyimba achieved that feat, you would
understand that a lot of personal financial support/sacrifice came from one man
in the person of Orji Uzor Kalu (The pillar of sports) The Nigerian football clubs
administrators should take a cue from that. Football is business and any
business that goes without remitting returns will never attract investors(see
the returns Enyimba made in this quoted year)
and as long as our league continue to be less competitive our best will
continue to migrate to other better leagues on a daily basis.
An
administrator/manager of a club should be able to attract sponsors/investors
for the club; but how can we achieve this feat when mediocrity controls our
clubs. A study I did recently on the reason why Nigeria Players prefer to play
in countries like Sudan ,South Africa, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Angola
showed that many of them left because of the way our league where managed ;in
terms of players welfare and bad management. Who can blame them? But again how
many South Africa, Algeria and Egyptian nationals have you seen plying their
trade in the Nigeria league ?
My point is :
If we restructure our
league ; our players will have no reason to leave and we would have a competitive
environment and when we have a competitive environment investors will come in.
Politicians must hand over the affairs of our dear football to veterans of the game. The time to build our future is now.
Politicians must hand over the affairs of our dear football to veterans of the game. The time to build our future is now.
It is high time we
recover our football from politics
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