Merry Christmas!!!

I wish all readers a very Merry Christmas.
I am touching on several issues that could generate some debate and provoke intellectual discourse as we prepare to go into a New Year.
As we draw to the end of the year, I want to save Nigerians the agony of reliving a year they would want to forget in a hurry.
The year has been truly an agonising experience as the country’s football has plummeted from its once-Olympian height to the lower rungs of African football! It is unbelievable that many African teams now play against Nigeria’s once-dreaded national football teams without any fear. Without doubt the country’s greatest achievement in football during the year is it’s resounding failure to win anything at any level. Instead, it is the year that the country shifted its attention from the football turf to the boardroom. There was also plenty of action in the law courts, with the football association and the Premier league board spending the entire year fighting different litigations from cases of theft, misappropriation of funds, fraud, legitimacy of elections, infighting between board members, to crisis over sponsorship deals. As the battles raged the ordinary Nigerian could do nothing to stop the country’s teams from crashing like dominoes, one after the other, in international competitions. At the end of the year there wasn’t even one proper silverware to console Nigerians, only the painful memories of shattered dreams, disappointing performances and the carcasses of demolished ‘Dream Teams’.
When he could not do anything to effect the changes that could have altered the fortunes of the game in the country, the Nigerian abandons his own domestic football and turns to the English Premiership for solace. Today we are told that Nigeria has the largest followership of one or two of the English Premiership clubs in the world. Today Nigeria does not have any player of note truly excelling at the highest levels of football. Today Nigeria’s brightest ‘lights’ are its fading stars. Today none of its players (once again) is listed for the African Player of the Year award.
Football in Nigeria has never had it so bad. Personally, I cannot wait to wake up from the nightmare, hoping that the New Year will bring some fresh hope and a new direction. 2011 has been a year during which the gods were angry as they withheld their grace and denied Nigerians the opportunity to record unmerited success, to reap dividends from no investment, and to harvest from unsown seeds!

Football and the Nigerian government!
How did the country get to this sorry state of affairs? Why can the ordinary taxpayer on the street, whose resources are used to fuel and fund all the clubs in the domestic game, not have any say or substantial input in how the game is run in the country? Why has government surrendered its sovereign right to a group that has used intimidation, fear and the threat of bans by FIFA to keep government from taking decisions in the people’s best interest. True, I was part of those that advocated and fought for autonomy for the NFA in running its affairs, but no one envisioned that the product of that struggle would become the authoritarian contraption that has emerged and is running the game.
Things started to get worse for Nigerian football when government surrendered its right to interfere in the affairs of a public organisation that it funds with tax-payers money. Although government’s intervention in the past was considered distractive and disruptive, such interventions usually terminated what were considered poor administration, and, somehow, would always restore some sanity to the system. Looking back now, one can easily say that government’s choice of administrators was better than what the system has thrown up since the statutes of the NFA became the operative document. At no time did government ever terminate a progressive and successful NFA. Thats why even with government interference some good results were achieved in the past. Now, autonomy has given birth to the poorest results in our history.

The artificial turf in use by several clubs for their matches may be good for television coverage but hampers comfortability on the ball, affects good control of the ball by players and increases the frequency and severity of injuries. The artificial turf cannot be a commensurate substitute for a flat, well-grassed turf. Were it not so most of the biggest clubs in the world would have embraced it. Nigeria must rethink the proliferation of artificial football surfaces and return to the beauty of lush green fields. The country must introduce better and proper groundsmanship to our football grounds. With good top soil, adequate water supply, controlled usage of the field and well-trained groundsmen even the fields in the desert would flourish with luxuriant grass. To play well on artificial turf requires mastering the facility and does not add anything to the quality of football instead it takes away its elegance. An artificial turf may be better than the hard, bumpy and sandy pitches of old, but surely they are not a good substitute for good, flat, lush grass.

‘Sign-on fee’ is an aberration. It does not exist in proper football lexicon. It is a creation of the Nigerian football system that has become the greatest impediment to the growth and emergence of proper professional clubs in the country. I do not know how or who introduced it into Nigerian football but through the years it has taken on a life of its own and is growing quickly and steadily like a cancer destroying the fabric of Nigerian football. Or how else can one describe a product that strikes fear in the heart of every club manager, psychologically dampens the morale of players throughout the season as they are not fully paid the fee, and creates disagreements requiring that the football association mediate every year-end in the disagreements that ensue between hundreds of players and their defaulting owners – the different State governments. Players must find another way to demand for improvement in their welfare package from their clubs. I believe they can achieve this by negotiating better wages and better performance bonuses that can be more easily met by their employees than fees that so far have not helped their psyche as they struggle throughout the season to get their clubs to pay them. When players are owed they will not put up their best. The stories of unpaid sign-on fees at the start of every season litter the football landscape. They have become a burden to clubs and even more to players.

Nigerian football is short on natural left-footed players. They are a big advantage to any team that has them, particularly those with exceptional skills. For many years now, the left side of most of Nigeria’s teams at club and national level have always been vulnerable in defence and weak in attack. Even in the heart of the midfield, until Joel Obi came on to provide a refreshing change to the Super Eagles the team was attempting to fly with one wing. Looking down the history of Nigerian football left-footed players have always played pivotal roles in Nigeria’s successes such that all the teams that have excelled have had very gifted left-sided players – 1976-Kunle Awesu; 1980-Felix Owolabi, Adokie Amiesimaka; 1984-Humphrey Edobor, Friday Elaho; 1994-1996 Emmanuel Amuneke; 1998 Garba Lawal. Nigeria must search for, encourage, and nurture left-footed players as a deliberate strategy.

Through my many years of organising football at youth level I have studied Nigerian coaches at youth level and observed that they have inadvertently become the greatest impediment to the evolution of truly exceptional players in Nigerian football. They consistently sacrifice artistry of the players for technical development. They discourage players that have the ability to hold on to the ball, dribble past opponents, receive the pass and shield it from opponents. These players that ‘hold on to the ball for too long, delay passes and do not play with the rest of the team’ are often not appreciated and encouraged to hone those particularly skills enough. Yet, it is the ability to do all of those things that mark them out as exceptionally gifted and separates them from the rest of the field. They are the ones that can always make the difference with one moment of magic. Nigerian coaches shout and rave at kid players who should be allowed to play freely and enjoy their football rather than bugged down by technicalities they cannot even understand. The art of the dribble in tight spaces must be taught and encouraged as it will enhance comfortability on the ball which is the hall mark of football geniuses. Check out Jay Jay Okocha, Lionel Messi, Pele, Maradona, Rivellino, Adokie Amiesimaka, Henry Nwosu, Kanu Nwankwo, and so on. Football is primarily an art form and the artist is master!

‘Football and school in Ghana must go hand in hand’. I heard it Thursday night in the speech of Ghana’s new Minister of Sports at the Glo Awards in Accra. He announced that from now onwards any child that wants to play football in Ghana must do so whilst in school! Is Africa listening?