Welcome, Globacom league

Ask any football fan the big games this weekend, they will easily mention the Manchester Derby between City and United. Fans of Arsenal will mention Wigan, Liverpool, West Ham and Chelsea fans will tell you it’s London derby between them and Tottenham.

Those in love with the La Liga will talk of matches involving Real Madrid and Barcelona, while lovers of Serie A will tell you the matches AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus and Rome will be playing. They probably don’t know or don’t even care to know that the Globacom Premier League will start this weekend, let alone the fixtures or the star matches.

Globacom League neglect

But why should anybody care to know about a league that boasts of terrible officiating, where the home team is guaranteed of three points with the active support of the central referee?

Why should anybody care about a league, where security is not guaranteed? They are not sure of getting back home in peace because of lack or absence of police officers or security officers. Why would anyone care about a league that the players are poorly kitted, the pitches are bad?

Media as scapegoat

One could easily blame the media for not giving the Globacom Premier League the kind of publicity they give the foreign leagues.

But there has to be a good product to report first, the media can’t invent stories. Unless the journalists want to paint a good picture of a bad product, there is nothing to report than the same old story of bad officiating, bad pitches, fans threatening to deal with referees if the home team does not win, fracas after each match and other negative things that outweigh the positive.

The media’s work is made more difficult by clubs not providing information. Unlike other countries where there is plethora of information about the clubs, the players, the coaches and the other statistics that will make reporting easy, no club in Nigeria produces the start list before a match.

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Even if our journalists write articles about the Globacom league, re-christened the best league in the world, sorry the best in Africa, people might not come back to the stadium, because fans did not just go to the stadium to watch football; they do so to see stars, and as long as leagues cannot retain its stars, people will not watch.

A few years ago, when Rasheed Yekini returned to the local league, the stadia were full, not because people wanted to see football but Yekini.

Each emerging star in the local league before they blossom, purchase a one way ticket and rush to Gabon, Sudan, Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia or Morocco, to nurture their talents and use it as a stepping stone to playing in Europe because no player wants to play in a league where they are not guaranteed salaries, sign-on fees are not paid regularly, if paid at all. There are no medical facilities, no insurance, players travel long hours by bus and more.

Best in Africa

That is why it is laughable when officials of the Nigeria Premier League say our league is the best in Africa. If we are the best, why are players running to other African countries to play? Whatever the statistics may say, the reality on the ground is, we are clearly not the best in West Africa, let alone Africa. And as long as the present board is in place, we will never be the best.

One of the steps to taking our league back to where it was in the 1980’s and early 1990’s is that government must hand over the clubs to individuals. In societies where football thrives, it is run as a business, not as government parastatal, like we do here. Secondly, we need people in the NPL who will run football like Coca-Cola, or Globacom or any business, not the way it is being run now.