Friday, September 1, As the Air Malawi Boeing 727- 300 series commenced its final descent into Chileka International airport in Blantyre, Malawi, a feeling of conquest enveloped me. (The six number of African countries I am yet to visit has now been reduced to five.)
Just before I left the country Thursday for Algeria via Morrocco, I was fascinated by media reports and insinuations that Coach Samson Siasia was accusing the Technical Committee of the NFF of interfering with his team list drawn up for the all important nations cup qualifier against Madagascar in Antannarivo in a fortnight.
Certainly the last has not been heard of the defeat of the Flying Eagles in the hands of France at the just concluded FIFA Under 20 World Cup in Colombia. I was a reporter sent by Champions Newspapers to cover the competition in Saudi Arabia in 1989 and we played up to the final.
I was fascinated with the first interview the new Sports Minister granted the media when he resumed duties in Abuja.
The Kenya Airways flight that took me to Kinshasha en route Nairobi also had on board, Alhassan Yakmut, Deputy Director in the National Sports Commission, part of a Nigerian team to Maputo, for a pre All Africa Games meeting.
Whenever a new minister is appointed to man sports, we the stakeholders ( That word again ) have developed the bad habit of criticising government for what is often considered an uninformed decision, a bad pick.
As you are reading this, I am transiting in Cairo.
I left Algiers yesterday, after Coordinating the CAF Champions League match between Mouloudia d’Alger and Esperance of Tunisia.
I remember that immediately after the Kaduna festival, I wrote on the madness that trails the publication of medals tables.
Nigeria is in the dock. Brought to the court of public opinion on the believed “premature ouster” of the Falcons from the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The current issue of the authoritative soccer magazine, 442, Nigeria provides me the subject for my column today.
For those Nigerians whose sports lifes revolve round the European leagues, the off season period is often a nightmare that refuses to go away till early August.
In 2009, there was a certain report that rated the Nigeria Premier League as the best in Africa.This raised a lot of eye brows, especially from those Nigerians whose assessment of the league can only be measured by the number of its players in the national team, the Super Eagles.
Because I believe and strongly too, that we are not doing enough to project our youth on world stage, I want to write this week on some events of last week that touched my sports heart.
