Time to restructure and rethink football in Nigeria
In the past three months, football in Nigeria has served an unappetising menu of disappointment, a narrow escape from a ban by the global regulator and now a scandalous abrupt end to the league season. It all bespeaks trouble in the house of football. There is a need to look again at the structure, systems and processes of our football to organise appropriately for progress.
Much hope and hype attended the participation of the senior national team, the Super Eagles, in the World Cup hosted by Russia. Our colourful jersey won plaudits and earned great revenues for its kit sponsor Nike as well as the Nigerian Football Federation. Across the world, people wanted to identify with the Super Eagles and queued to buy the jersey and urge the team on.
Alas. The Super Eagles crashed out in the first round. They won only one match out of three. Their performance reprised the poor outing in the last event in Brazil. From the first outing in USA 94, passage to the round of 16 is the minimum expected of any Nigerian team at the Mundial.
While the World Cup was on, the house of football in Nigeria was on fire with a tussle over leadership of the NFF. Mr Chris Giwa, aided by Sports Minister Solomon Dalung, sought to take advantage of a court judgement pronouncing him president of the federation. It dragged. It pulled and only took a threat of sanction by FIFA to restore Mr Amaju Pinnick.
Officials decided to suspend the Nigerian Professional Football League for one month allegedly because of the crisis but mainly to enable them to join the party in Russia. In contrast, league action continued in the host country Russia and in a few other nations who organise their football correctly.
The inglorious denouement came on August 31 when the League Management Company announced that it had agreed with the 20 clubs in the NPFL to end the 2018 season after only 24 games and with 14 games left. If they continued given the loss of one month, Nigeria would be unable to meet the October 15 deadline for countries to send in the names of their representatives to the Confederation of African Football for CAF club competitions. So, the League ended abruptly with Lobi Stars as winners. We would present a team that has not gone through the rigours of a full season of league action!
While Nigerians gather in bars, clubs and homes to watch foreign leagues every weekend, the managers fail to organise a proper professional league at home. Elsewhere, the football leagues are becoming tourism ventures as well as the centrepiece of entertainment with a family outing to watch a league match a significant event. Nigeria is the land of Nollywood and its many variants. Imagine the marriage of Nollywood and football as entertainment!
Many problems bedevil football administration in Nigeria. As with football, so the other sports. The thinking is that football can and should be the tide that raises all boats, if well developed and managed, but there are many challenges in getting right the administrative and management structure of sports in general, and football in particular.
First is a misperception by Government and administratorsof sports as a purely participatory endeavour and not an economic contributor. There is the absence of explicit legislation and policy to define the goals and objectives of the sector to support the development of the sports value chain. Experts cite this policy and legal lacuna as a drawback to the participation and investment of the private sector. Then there are infrastructure deficiencies at all levels, from the grassroots through the amateur and professionalleagues.
Inadequate funding adds to the strategic limitations of administrators across the spectrum, leading to administrative, capacity and corporate governance gaps. There are insufficient events and activities to create local demand to develop sports content. Finally, the sector lacksarticulated funding and investment models.
Experts at the “Sports as a Business” breakout session of the 23rd Nigerian Economic Summit in 2017 identified the previous issues and challenges. We applaud reports of further moves to engage with stakeholders in both the public and private sectors to chart a viable course for the development of sports as an industry capable of boosting the performance of athletes, creating employment and developing our youth.
Across the world, football and sports generally have become engines of growth. They are profitable, engage the energies of the young and are flagbearers of national reputations and ambitions. There is money in football, even in Nigeria and this is partlythe reason for the contention over the headship of the federation. A massive pot of about N4b annually is at stake with the game here, according to informed analysts.Note that this is just from what the Federal Governmentspends on football. The estimated revenue from sporting activities is more thanN400b. It comes mainly from Government spending across all tiers, merchandising and equipment activities (which keep factories in Asia producing items that we could providehere) sports betting, and advertising spend (which is mainly on foreign content such as the EPL, UEFA Champions League, other European Leagues, etc.).
There is tremendous potential to generate income from sports; the real action is at the base of the pyramid where there is unmet demand from over 170 Million Nigerians. In football, the bottom of the pyramid is the Nigerian Nationwide League with its three levels hosting 250 teams, over 13,000 players and officials and reaching all corners of the country.Nigeria has yet to meet the demand for content, facilities and equipment from the nearly 100 million target market of this League.
Nigeria should now position sports in general and football in particular as a consumer and demand-driven retail sector of the economy. A viable sports business industry would tap into an extensive value chain. The chain includes stadia and venues, equipment manufacturing, kitting and merchandising, sponsorship and events management. Others are sports medicine, training and facilities, talent development, broadcast and content management, tourism and entertainment.
The economic linkages are so vast. Manufacturers here can make the jerseys, boots, balls and other tools that we currently bring in from various locations, from China through Europe with Dubai in-between.
Scale up participation at local level and unleash the potential of football in Nigeria. We should institute club football as the bedrock of football business in Nigeria, insist on clubs as predominantly privately-owned organisations and strengthen the leagues to be the spur for the commercialisation of football in Nigeria. The administrators of football must be people with a vested, commercial interest in developing the game as an industry capable of adding economic value to the society. Until we do this, we will continue to have the four-year cycle of problems that have bedevilled the sport since 2006! The time to restructure the administration of football is now!