Posted by Ademola Olajire on
Defeat for Dolphin FC of Port Harcourt in Rabat on Saturday meant Nigeria have ended the year near empty-handed, at least in the football arena.
•Nigeria football is in total disarray
Who will save the day?
Defeat for Dolphin FC of Port Harcourt in Rabat on Saturday meant Nigeria have ended the year near empty-handed, at least in the football arena. Only the Flying Eagles' victory at the African Youth Championship brought something to cheer. May we never see this kind of year again!
But as we pray that we don't encounter this kind of year again, we also need to be on our knees in supplication to the Supreme Being never to give us the kind of Football Association board members and management team that we have now either in the near or distant future.
From the beginning of the year, it has been one woe or the other, with the unfeeling board members and interim management body behaving as if they are people from the moon. They have refused to hearken to advice, have failed to realize their extreme incompetence and have continued to chase shadows even one whole year after coming into office on so-called interim basis.
Dolphin's defeat and the circumstances of the week before fully exposed the shenanigans of the current football governors in the land. The fellows in the Football House herded themselves off to Port Harcourt for the Coca-Cola FA Cup Final without giving a thought to the matter of who should dispatch invitation letters to foreign-based players for the friendly match against Romania in Bucharest last Wednesday.
All they were concerned about, both board members and management team members, was about going to Rivers State, where the government of Dr Peter Odili is known to be generous with ‘goodies' when hosting sporting events. The board members and management team fellows packed themselves into choice hotels in the Garden City and forgot the crucial issues at hand.
They would only start dispatching invitation letters to foreign-based players only on Monday, 48 hours before the match, and it is no surprise that only one or two, and essentially those who had been eager to don the Eagles' shirt, turned up in Eastern Europe.
For donkey years, the players have shouted themselves hoarse about an inefficient, inconsiderate and self-centered NFA, and we have always thought they were over-reacting. It is now clear that the players have been right all along.
Considering that the match in Romania was the first in the tune-up series for the Nations Cup, for a ‘giant of Africa' that failed to qualify for the World Cup finals, one would have expected utmost seriousness and diligence in approach.
Instead, I also learnt that the jamboree in Port Harcourt was not only about being in town for the FA Cup and benefiting from the largesse of Dr Odili, but also about who and who would travel with Dolphin FC for their CAF Confederation Cup final against FAR in Morocco.
The lucre-desperate board members and its management members struggled among themselves to get on the list, with the trip to Bucharest suffering intensely from deliberate oversight, poor coordination and dearth of personnel.
It is the only reason why the Nigeria national football team would arrive in a foreign land for a high profile international friendly without the required number of players to start a match, in a country where there are over 10,000 registered players and more than one thousand others based abroad.
The ‘giant of Africa' set the whole of Romania into a huff as they desperately begged for the address of any Nigerian footballer in that country, knowing that there must be one. Where in the world won't you find Nigerian footballers?
They eventually got on line to Abiodun Agunbiade, who played for the national U-17 team, Golden Eaglets at the UEFA/CAF Meridien Cup tournament in South Africa in 1999, and at the African Junior Championship in Guinea the same year. They ran like headless chickens and fetched the boy, who was more than a little amused. Is this how people win their first senior caps?
Some commentators have asked why the delegation leaders, knowing that letters only went to the foreign-based players only on Monday, did not make arrangements to take enough home-based players to Bucharest in case of disappointment. Well, the truth was the NFA could not take a decision on as simple a matter as what manner of players they wanted to play the game with: foreign-based or home-based.
While the management team fellows led by Fanny Amun (it is only in Nigeria that a coach would be Secretary-General of the federation, under the guise of ‘interim', for close to one year) had the opportunity to pick players from Enyimba FC and Lobi Stars (the FA Cup finalists) for the trip, nobody was thinking about that because the money to be made from the trip to Morocco with Dolphin was more important.
We have been saddled with a cash-and-carry NFA for sometime now and it is time for them to simply pack their bags and leave us alone. Did you hear that the players (from Nigeria, the world's sixth largest producer of petroleum products) were begging for food in Romania?
Nigeria succeeded in delaying the game for three-and-a-half hours and the comments of Salvan Rat, a Romanian player, fully captured the tragicomedy of the evening. 'It was 5:50 and the Nigerians had not come out for their warm-up. We actually thought the match would no longer hold.
'I don't even know the names of players we played against. It was something of a comedy".
The Romanian federation promptly fired a protest letter to FIFA, seeking sanction against Nigeria for reducing what was supposed to be a high profile show into a worthless drama.
Sometime last year, the same board members harried the Super Eagles off to England for a friendly match with Venezuela without concretizing arrangements with the organizers. The contingent arrived their London hotel and paraded in the lobby for eight hours, without food or lodging. Eventually, Nwankwo Kanu and Austin Okocha saved the day by hiring cabs and taking the players to a cafeteria somewhere to eat.
In 2003, the travel-desperate members insisted on a trip to Japan for a friendly despite the non-availability of key players. The ‘C' team that was fielded got pounded 3-0, only a year after Austin Okocha led a young squad that fought bravely against Argentina and Sweden, and held England to a draw at the World Cup in the same country.
I am yet to decide on what grade the side that lost to Romania is. But it definitely cannot earn better than ‘C'.
Now that the nation has ended the year almost empty-handed, I wonder what the charlatans in the board would have to campaign on concerning their desire to return to office.
So many excuses have been offered and still being offered for Dolphin's annihilation in Rabat. One guy on TV said: 'We have always had this problem with North African teams, because they are more technical". Wrong. Dolphin played against two North African teams in the group phase of the competition and did not lose either match away. They defeated Arab Contractors and were forced to a 1-1 draw by Ismailia, two Egyptian teams that I rate much stronger than Royal Armed Forces of Morocco.
Also, Enyimba FC won the CAF Champions League in 2003 by beating two North African teams (USMA of Algeria and Ismailia of Egypt) in the last rounds. The People's Elephant did the same in 2004, beating Tunisia's Esperance and Etoile du Sahel in the final two rounds.
The major problem was the pollution of the atmosphere around the team, by one -game well-wishers and emergency friends. The overload of these hangers-on did a lot of damage to the psyche of the players and officials and changed the environment they were used to.
Coach Musa Abdullahi led the team creditably through the campaign. Never since he got to the team have they lost 3-0 in a continental match. Abdullahi has worked with many foreign and indigenous coaches at national team level and is credited with a great match-reading ability. But he was told to work with a strange bedfellow in Austin Eguavoen for the match in Morocco and no one should be surprised as to what eventually happened.
Yes, they say too many cooks spoil the broth. That was what we saw in Morocco. A team that had been unbeaten in the whole competition suddenly crumbled on all fronts and could not even offer a response.
I suggest Dr. Odili ask the club's emergency friends a number of questions in order that he would not fall into the trap of these fair weather associates again.
As for a barren year, the only way we can show anger is to ensure that the band of flops and travel-desperate characters presently in office do not get to come back, under any guise. But unfortunately, that decision is left for the politicians, the people who would vote, to determine. And we all know their temperament. Once there is some money to be shared, they lose their conscience.
But one would be happy if they can ponder over the following facts. At the beginning of the year, the country was in the race for the World Cup 2006 finals.
There were Insurance FC of Benin and Enugu Rangers in the CAF Confederation Cup, and Enyimba FC and Dolphin in the CAF Champions League. The Flying Eagles won the African Youth Championship in Benin Republic, but that was no cue for the board members and management (or damage-ment?) team to give Coach Samson Siasia all the support they needed to excel at the World Championship in Holland in the summer. Instead, they fought village square battles with Siasia over a N7 million cheque he got from his state government to put the players in camp.
The FA chairman, Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima, decided on his own that the crucial World Cup qualifier against Angola would be played in his home state of Kano, and under the scorching sun. The Eagles bid bye to a World Cup ticket with the 1-1 draw that day.
The national U-17 team Golden Eaglets, for which the entire board and management team abandoned Siasia's proven performers to attend to in Gambia, failed to qualify for the FIFA U-17 World Cup, crashing out disgracefully in the group stage. Insurance of Benin, Enugu Rangers, Enyimba and finally Dolphin returned from continental campaigns empty-handed.
The FA has gone from one bungling to the other. If they remain in office, what is sure is that they would bungle the Cup of Nations campaign. Only God can save the day.
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Yet more shambles...
One would have called on President Olusegun Obasanjo to save the day for Nigeria football and summarily send the present board and management team of the NFA packing. But one remembers that he is the cause of the entire farce in the first place.
He is the one who has appointed five Sports ministers under six years, none of which had any background in sports. Damishi Tonson Sango was followed by Ishaya Mark Aku (now late), who was followed by Steven Ibn Akiga (now late), who was followed by Musa Muhammed and now, Saidu Samaila Sambawa. The current holder of the office is young and bright, but he's not as firm as he would be if he had a grasp of the terrain.
Should we really blame Galadima for saying that he did not promise the nation a World Cup ticket on assumption of office in November 2002? Should we also blame him for saying that he would be willing to resign for the World Cup failure, if our core political leaders show the way by resigning from office?
He is right, after all. A friend called me from London on Thursday and asked whether I thought the third term agenda joke was not becoming too serious.
'What has the Obasanjo government done to be pushing for such an incontemplable? I heard the only thing the administration achieved, GSM, is now blowing up in their faces because what has never happened in other places is happening - the people are increasing tariffs five years after operation started, when the prices should be crashing!
'I am told the education sector is in intensive care, the health sector is comatose, the aviation sector is in tatters, the roads are still so bad, there has been endless increases in prices of petroleum products, nothing is said about railway because the government's friends are the ones running the road haulage business with their tankers and containers and trucks, and power outage has become more regular.
'I also hear that despite figures being bandied about improvement in inflation situation by Okonjo-Iweala, the reality on the ground is much different. I hear graduates are now dominating the okada business, and that the so-called corruption war is only targeted at the opponents of the administration.
'Tell me something, I have been told the gap between the rich and the poor is widening beyond belief. They have ‘killed' the agricultural sector. So, everything now is about oil and gas. By the time the oil dries up, we would have run out of gas!"
I switched off the phone, but not before telling him that the third term agenda is real, and that it's probably the only reason why Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima also wants a second term of office, and would then demand a change in constitution in the next three years for another term.
If the President were to be a football fan, I would say he is perhaps thinking of the third term because after all, the Super Eagles played at the World Cup finals three times successively before failing this time!
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Another shambles...
Last Saturday, the election of officers to run the affairs of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) for the next three years ended in fiasco when some members of the electoral committee accepted the contention of the incumbent president, Olu Amadasun that the main challenger, Tony Ubani, is not a member of the SWAN.
By nature, I am intensely apolitical. But honestly, I thought it was a weekend joke when a colleague in the office, Miebi Senge, informed me of the development after the MTN Marathon in Lagos. The SWAN election was taking place in Yola, Adamawa State, and all I expected was news that Tony Ubani had been elected president.
It is neither because Tony Ubani is my very close friend nor because we work in the same organization. It is about what is proper and what is good for the SWAN. Since the departure of Fan Ndubuoke from the office, the SWAN Presidency has begged for someone with the influence and clout to make things happen for the hardworking sports journalists of this country.
I was at the African Cup of Nations last year and not seeing the SWAN President, asked a few board members of the FA present why Mr Olu Amadasun was not around. Their response was: 'The NFA don't have money. Olu would be surplus to requirement here".
I pondered on that statement, and wondered if anyone could have told Fan Ndubuoke, when he was spokesman of the FA, that he would not make a trip because their was no money. Of course not! It boils down to clout and impression.
Tony Ubani first travelled outside this country to cover an international sporting event nearly 13 years ago, when he covered the African Junior Championship in Mauritius in January 1993. He has since covered the football World Cup finals (France 1998), the Olympics (Sydney 2000) and a number of African Cup of Nations tournaments (including Mali 2002 and Tunisia 2004) and a number of club championships at home and abroad. Last year, he was with the Super Eagles at their Nations Cup training camp in Faro, Portugal. He is also known as a table tennis enthusiast.
Beyond all the above, he was for many years the chairman of the Lagos State chapter (by far the most vibrant chapter in the country) of the SWAN. He was also deputy president of the SWAN that honoured Prince Oyedokun Abidoye (now late) as the Pillar of Sports in Nigeria some years ago. Olu Amadasun was at that event as SWAN President.
I have listed all the above because I continue to marvel at the ingenuity of people who claimed that he is not a member of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria. What a joke!
In Ubani, I see an energetic, dynamic, diligent, conscientious and honourable guy who wants to lift the profile of SWAN, from the present unenviable status. It is time for the entire body of sports writers to rise up and challenge the band of unemployed and unemployable fellows who have turned the SWAN into a cap-in-hand organization simply as a result of their lack of character, style and panache. This is a job for all sports journalists in the country.