The Nigeria Football league was shown on NTA Network in the mid-1980s on their programme ‘Match of the Week which was sponsored by Cadbury Limited (long before they became a PLC).
In my secondary school classes at the time, we used to discuss the fixtures and wonder which match will be on TV. We looked forward to those matches. We had Abiola Babes fans, IICC Shooting Stars, Stores, NNB, Bendel Insurance, Rangers International, Leventis United and even Spartans of Owerri fans.
Passionate young boys we were. On the playgrounds during breaks, we wanted to be those players. Too many wanted to be Henry Nwosu, Ozogula, Edobor, Keshi, Ekarika, Ekpo etc.
With 30 years making a generation, it will be a confident stance to take and say that Nigeria (and perhaps most of sub-Sahara Africa) has lost a generation to European football.It took a lot to watch European football TV 30 years ago but in the intervening years it has been so much easier to watch these matches on lush green surfaces, full stadiums, star names. The Internet has democratised access in a way that was undreamt of 30 years ago. I will come to the deeper effect of this either later or in part 2.
Nigeria’s land area (According to Wikipedia) is a little over 923k square kilometres. By any index, that is not a small country.
Every seventh market day discussions take place on how to make Nigerian league (and football in Nigeria) better, more attractive and even a business.
There are many who believe “Our clubs should be more digital in their approach to things. They should have thriving media channels and so on and so forth.. .” My friend, Godwin Enakhena says that Nigerians “Love to climb trees from the top” and I agree that this applies to those of the digital steaming set.
For me two non-negotiable factors have to be introduced into our league for progress.
State governments must be stopped from owning football clubs. Not even 1% ownership should be allowed. There is NOT one positive from club ownership.
In a financially accountable and prudent country, this ownership of clubs would have been long discouraged. It is a black hole in which taxpayers money disappear with few making themselves stupendously wealthy from it. This has been so for decades.
The second factor that must be introduced is running the league in a different format. Have a Conference/Zonal format for the league and then a one venue play-off to determine the winners. These Conferences/Zones would be determined by distances and or regions, even if it means increasing the number of clubs into the Elite division to form a playable format, so be it.
Nigeria is too vast, too insecure and the league not rich enough to attract the money to make clubs fly from Aba to Maiduguri at this point. There is no economic or sporting need to support playing the League in Nigeria at all levels nationwide.
Speak to footballers who have played in the league and they will tell you they hate the long road trips and all attached to it. These long, backbreaking tiring journeys contribute to footballers performing poorly on the pitch, expose them to injuries and traumas from road accidents/robberies cause them to engage in recreational activities inimical to their health and sporting lives.
The only people against the breaking up of leagues into Conferences/Zones are the Chairmen of those clubs owned by state governments. Their reasons have nothing to do with the welfare of the players, integrity of the league nor anything positive for the league. They are only looking after their “income” from those long journeys. Another reason why state-owned football clubs need to be strongly discouraged.
Next week Tuesday I will flesh out those factors outlined above. This issue of the Nigerian football league and football in Nigeria is very important to me and I would like to share some truths here.
In the meantime, please feel free to engage with me on this or any other topic here or on my Twitter handle (X) @CalvinEmeka
