OVERSIGHT: Nigeria's football house has fallen

Last Thursday was the 49th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence. This development calls for an examination of the state of Nigerian sports, especially football and athletics.

For this week, let’s address the health of football.

In August, NEXT ran a story which gave ten reasons why the Nigerian Premier League is unattractive. Three reasons are very important: insecurity at stadia; lack of technical depth in the games; and administrative incompetence that has bred poor officiating, corruption and impunity.

The corruption that permeates all aspects of the Nigerian society has taken a foothold in football. Previously, we had Nigerians who put their resources into football development: the likes of Moshood Abiola, Garba N. Hamza and Jim Nwobodo.

If you have the passion for football, you would not mind spending your money to make football work. Now the sponsors of clubs are state governments. Where is the commitment and passion?

That said, today’s football administrators are a bunch of greedy men and women who believe that football is where they will take their own national cake.

As is well known, the present board of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) is a political board-the incumbents are not people with interest in football. In other climes, football is run by genuine stakeholders-ex-footballers and persons with technical ability or passion (like club owners.)

The NPL Even the Nigeria Professional League (NPL) is no better. Take the expose by NEXT two Sundays ago on NPL spending about 80 percent of its budget on administrative and other expenditures for the 2009/2010 season, a while pittance goes to players and the clubs.

The NPL would get N1, 191,875.71 billion as revenue (N921, 800 million of the income coming from Globacom Telecommunications, the title sponsor, for television rights) whereas the 20 football clubs participating in the league will get only N200 million.

But how is television revenue distributed in the English Premier League? According to the website of the Barclays Premier League, “50 % of the total money goes on an equal share basis to the 20 Premier League clubs while relegated clubs also receive some of this money in the form of parachute payment.

"Twenty five percent of the money is paid as facility fees, which are determined by the number of appearances on television.

Twenty five percent is paid on merit payments, determined by the position that a club finished in the League.”

Tolerance for cheating

While countries that take football seriously have zero tolerance for cheating, the football authorities in Nigeria literally tolerate it. On Oyuki Obaseki’s watch as chairman of NPL, two scandals have taken place and nothing happened.

Two teams have won 13-0(Akwa United against Calabar Rovers) and 9-0(Zamfara United against Kaduna United) just to escape relegation.

Yet, Obaseki had the temerity to declare the nation’s league as the best in Africa and the 23rd best in the world. “If it were one of these tiny countries in Africa, the whole arms of the press will give it very wide publicity, not because they love that country, but because they want to ridicule the clubs in Nigeria and her administrators.

"This is a shame,” he remarked early this year. In Obaseki’s league, Rangers FC of Enugu fielded 12 players in a game against Lobi Stars.

In 2007, during a match at Aba between Enyimba and Wikki Tourists, two goals were overruled given that as the ball was bound for Enyimba’s net, the ball boys threw balls into the pitch and the referee ruled interference. It happened twice in that game.

State of officiating

Nothing illustrates the state of Nigerian officiating better than FIFA’s decision not to involve a Nigerian as part of officials for the U-17 World Cup which holds in Nigeria this month. That’s utter contempt. If our officials cannot make the mark for age competitions, how can they officiate in big tourneys?

Refereeing is a critical part of football development but it is not considered so in Nigeria. The present situation where referees enjoy the least protection leaves much to be desired. The NFF should be saddled with the protection of referees.

Given that the host team is in charge of security of the officials, the referee and his team are put in a tough situation on how to handle the home team. In addition, we should go back to the drawing board to encourage interest in refereeing, even at secondary school level.

Abuse of youth competitions

The flagrant abuse of youth competitions has given a false impression of our prowess in football. Cheating has created a situation where we are desperate to win youth tournaments, rather than using them to develop new talents who will be harvested to build senior national teams.

Some have argued that rotten sports infrastructure has a part to play in the decline of football. That’s true but it does not tell the whole story.

In fact, the facilities have improved over what they were in the 70s and 80s. Recall that in those halcyon days and with crude sports infrastructure, camping by national teams and clubs engaged in international tourneys were mostly in those facilities.

The contempt for knowledge is also a contributor. Witness how Enyimba treated Austin Eguavoen, its coach that led them to win this year’s Challenge Cup.

He had asked his then employers to assist him to pursue a three-month training overseas and was turned down. He voted with his feet in search of knowledge.

Our coaches

Nonetheless, the commitment and integrity that was driving coaches to succeed no longer exists. Now, coaches are under pressure to select players sent to them by their ‘godfathers.’

Coaches do not care if those players foisted on them have talent; all they care is for the opportunity to coach national teams. As such, the buck no longer stops at the table of the coaches.

Finally, we need to start thinking of how to make football profitable-turning football into business. Under such dispensation, contracts between players and clubs must be firmed up. The era of players going AWOL in the name of trials would be addressed.

And clubs must pay sign-on fees and salaries of their players as and when due. The distortions that are being witnessed in the game are partly due to the fact that state governments are owners of clubs.