By Prof. Emmanuel  Ojeme
Since the conclusion of the 2010 FIFA World Cup marked by the fatal failure of the Super Eagles, national discourse on sports has been dominated by football issues.

The failure of the Super Eagles also means the failure of the Nigerian Football Federation, the midwife of the team. The intensity of the debate on the future of Nigerian football has reached its zenith. Also, football governance in Nigeria has developed organizational obesity.

There is the Presidential Advisory Committee and Presidential Task Force (PTF) on football development, the interim NFF and Supervisory Government Agency, the National Sports Commission. Also add the two parliamentary committees on sports and you will have a sky scrapper structure for football.

The good news, however, is that at the end of the day we expect to have a fine-tuned and fit Nigeria Football Federation that can deliver quality football programmes and performance outcomes that befit the status of Nigeria as the giant of Africa. In this paper, I will attempt to advance some critical benchmarks of a new NFF that can fit the bill of efficiency and effectiveness in the execution of its functions.

It is my considered opinion that something is wrong with the process of composing the membership of the Nigerian Football Federation. A purely political electioneering process for membership emergence into a sports organization body without minimum professional qualification is inherently and organically deficient and defective. Check it out, what quality of membership would we have?

Secondly, the process of composition of membership has boxed out key constituencies of professional sports bodies and experts.

So, we will have an NFF as we have always had that is regurgitative and reproductive in programmes and practices, always referring to what other countries do, with minimum attempt to create something new based on sports epistemology.

We need an NFF that is creative minded, research based, culturally adaptive and centrifugal respect for the dignity, integrity, sensibility of the Nigerian nation. We do not need an NFF that is tied to the umbilical cord of F.I.F.A, every time that there is a ‘husband and wife’ disagreement in the organization.

I personally find distasteful, the frequency of protests and reportage of Nigeria by individuals to F.I.F.A. We make ourselves the object of ridicule and laughter and deepen the imperialist grip of F.I.F.A on nations, each time we manifest this behaviour.

In the remaking of the Nigerian football Federation, we need to consider very seriously the necessity to recreate the constituency structure of the NFF to make it possible to have an organizational body to also includes constituency representation sports experts who possess the knowledge to connect football to the humanities, the social and scientific realities of the game. To continue to treat football, a form of sport, as a ‘general goods’ commodity is absolutely wrong. Football as a sport has a knowledge constituency that cannot be discounted.

Can you imagine, the decision of the NFF to commence the rebuilding of the Super Eagles by arranging a friendly match with the South Korean national term that it just encountered without victory in the just ended World Cup, in spite of its disarrayed household.

I thought the NFF having come out of the typhoon and tornado of the World Cup, battered and bruised, it should go to the sanctuary of NIPSS or any other place for introspection and self examination.

As it is, this football body does not seem ready to recreate itself. I hope the upcoming and hopefully reformed NFF will begin its rebuilding of football in Nigeria by stating its football philosophy, vision, goals, development programmes and organizational development activities for the sake of Nigerian football. Let us also remember other sports in our development agenda that are currently weighed down by the organizational obesity of football.

Under miscellaneous comments, if it is true that the Presidency is comptemplating the position of a Special Adviser on sports, I volunteer to advice the authorities that such a person should be in the mould of the profile of a Legal Adviser or Economic Adviser.

Hence, the same cognate knowledge and experience required for the appointment of a legal adviser or Economic development Adviser should be applied in appointing a special adviser on sports. This is the only way to appoint an authentic special adviser who is not a hawker of sports goods and services.