By Richard Animam
For years, Nigerian sports has been at its lowest ebb following continuous negligence on the part of the Ministry of sports. They have completely shifted  attention to football to the detriment of other sports.

kojo

Gone are those days when Nigeria ruled African athletics, boxing and even table tennis, which used to be the nation’s strong hold at continental competitions.

Today, these sports have been dumped like a piece of rubbish, only to be remembered when there are international competitions. The Sports Ministry now runs football indirectly, using the Nigeria Football Association as a tool to achieve its aim and its officials have  enriched themselves under the pretence that they were running football.

As we speak, the NFA is not accountable and does not account for all the millions of naira that its gets from the Federal Government and FIFA.

The structure on ground is in tandem with their ambition and anyone who attempts to correct the situation is thrown out like a rotten tomato.

This is how the structure works. The Sports Ministry obviously aware of the gains of holding key positions in the NFA and also aware of  grants from FIFA, ensured that they had their men in the NFA and NPL holding key positions.

These officers report to the Sports Minister through the Ministry and  most times carry out the decision of their boss, which most times are contrary to that of the NFA and NPL Chairmen. The Ministry officials are the executive heads, while the chairmen are on part time basis.

No body paints the picture of this degradation  more vividly than former NFA chairman Anthony Kojo Williams who tried to change the ‘norm’ but was revolted against by board members under the instruction of the sport ministry. Kojo’ s account of what happened during NFA board meetings will definitely make you laugh.

“The board members are not interested in developing football. At board meetings all they are interested in are handsets, foreign trips and their local food (Amala). The way they eat the food, tells you that they are there for nothing else. Kojo began this interview that lasted almost 30minutes in his Victoria Island residence.

“We need a total overhaul of how things work in the NFA if we must move forward in this country”, he said. He also talked about the choice of ex Super Eagles striker Samson Siasia as new Super Eagles coach and what can be done to bring football back on track in Nigeria.  Excerpts.

What do you think are the     problems of our football?
To start with there are many problems that if I have to start pointing them out categorically, it will take a long time but the bottom line is that it all boils down to greed, self aggrandisement. It’s all about me, myself and I.

The other problem is that there is a group of people who have ran football in the past 20 years or 15 years that have destroyed the game and that are either still there or out, or still have their people in it. If you look at it, you will understand that the ministry itself- am not saying that the government should not support football, but the ministry was a strangle hold to the football.

When you have the civil servants running the Nigerian premier league, the so called Pro league the most unprofessional league in the world and the most corrupt league in the world,  you see it been run by  ministry officials, even in the NFA, you see the ministry official there too so, I don’t see how football can ever progress.

Another problem is that when you look at the name, Nigerian football federation, Abuja, then you will see that it is the ministry of Sports game . It is just saying the Federal Government of Nigeria, Abuja.

The Federal Government of Nigeria is the Federal Government of Nigeria. The bottom line is that the ministry runs it and they have state commissioners for sports that report to them and they dictate to state FAs. Basically that is what Nigerian football is.

How do we solve this problem?
Well I think it is up to the leadership of the country to into it. The leadership should ask if we truly want to continue this way or we look at it the other way.

If we truly want to run our football the proper way, first, the government has to call everybody ( I don’t like to use the word stakeholders) to order.

They need to professionalise it. I believe they should bring in a company like Accenture or KPMG to come and look at how it can be restructured and bring professionals to run the secretariat and then we now look at the  criteria for running our football. It is not a must that we must call it Premier league. In fact when it was the amateur league, it was much batter.

We have to look at the administration and the technical aspect. The technical aspect of it is in shambles. When you have archaic coaches, referees; our referees and coaches are the most corrupt in the world. They are not well trained, our officials are not well trained, they do not understand what modern football is about, they treat footballers as bunch of slaves, like they treat other people.

Until we look inward and come out with a proper professional way of restructuring our football, we will never move up. All the issues about elections is all about their pockets. We must sit down, look at the situation and bring in professional and look at it.

There is nothing wrong with bringing in someone from outside the country to run the secretariat and have our people to understudy him.  Nigerians run top associations world over, they can as well do well in Nigeria, if the right people are brought in and they must be properly paid but not ministry officials or state government officials.

What role can ex players play in the new NFA?
Well ex players can always come in later. I have no problem with ex players taking up  roles in the football federation but they can only come in after a proper restructuring has been done. They can only contribute effectively when you have a proper structure in place, when there is good administration. We have to be careful with our ex players.

Even in top countries, the ex players who come into running of the game are usually very intelligent. You have to look at his character off the field, the conduct, the quality of that player before he is given such responsibility. It’s not for the ex players. We have to look at the total ramification of that player.

In all fairness, Jay Jay is more exposed. I believe Okocha is more exposed, he has played football at the highest level, he has seen football at the highest level but without the proper things been put in place, these guys will run down the FA. Like I said earlier, we have to get companies to restructure our football.

Football has gone past a local association, that is situated in a small office, it has become a multinational thing, its so big now. It is not what we practice here, where you see a physiotherapist  run into the pitch with a bag of pure water to treat an injured player.

It is after we have brought in professionals to restructure our football, that is the only time when the likes of Okocha can come in and contribute his quota. As it is now if you bring ex players they will run the association down. Football today is a big thing, it is no longer that game that is played with a small mind frame. The issue here is that we need to professionalize our football.

It is only when we have done that, that we can now bring in not just ex players to run the game. We necessary do not have to get a footballer to do the work. We can get people outside football to do the work.

The guy who transformed the English FA years ago was not a footballer. He was on contract. If the ex players think they know what to do, they should try their hands at coaching, developmental aspect or consultation,  not administration. I will never recommend any one of them for administration. None of our coaches can handle the national team.

The choice of Siasia as
Super Eagles coach was criticised by Adeboye Onigbinde, stating that Siasia is not the best coach for the Super Eagles..
I am happy Chief Onigbinde said that, and I totally agree with him.

Siasia is someone I know well. And I have spoken with him one-on-one and I told him he was not qualified for the Super Eagles job. Number one, he does not have the exposure, the experience and he does not have the qualification like a UEFA coaching licence etc.

For me, you must have something to back you up. I told him that he must get some certification to back up himself.  The truth is, none of our coaches can handle our national team. All fairness, the teams he used are overaged players.

I am not here to run anybody down but we must tell ourselves the truth. Look at Ghana for instance, they came four years ago and said they had been cheating at under age competitions and said they would stop cheating. And they have done just that. Look at their team at the World Cup, and you would be impressed.

As far as I concerned, Ghana qualified for the semi final because I feel they were cheated. Ghana in the next four to eight can be either finalist or winners of the World Cup because they are doing the right thing. We have seriuos issues, we must isolate politics from football. We must stop cheating. Each time, we win, we are celebrating cheating. Look at the Falconets, who were angry that they were given scholarships. Players U-20 should be happy getting scholarships but it obvious that these girls are overaged.

A Finidi George will fit into proper football philosophy, a Sunday Oliseh will fit, I know the ex players who will fit in. What we do these days is that we hear….

The other thing is that why don’t we look at model school. The boys that are good are brought into the school with good teachers

Do we still need a foreign
coach?

Yes. It is very obvious. Like I said earlier, we do not have the coaches to handle the Super Eagles. Let’s forget all the noise people are making about foreign coach, we still need them. Talking about foreign, it is not compulsory that we must go for expensive coaches.

Those who go for expensive coaches do so because of what they stand to gain. In my opinion, we should go for one that is not very expensive, one who is a developmental coach. To say the truth, we need a coach for  the national teams- Super Eagles and Super Falcons.

I will state further by saying we need a foreign technical Director who would oversee the national team coaches. We can get a good coach from Holland, who is hungry to achieve and I can bet you that he would turn our team around.

What was your experience like in the NFA?
I really don’t like talking about it because it was not a good experience as far as I am concerned.  We have people who do not really want to develop the game, all they want is to fill there pocket with government money.

And I made my stand known to them that I can not be part of it. When I became NFA chairman, at our board meeting I gave them my blueprint on how to move forward and they applauded it. Later on, there was a gang and some of the board members were compromised and those who applauded by blueprint turned back to fight me because they got some money from the ministry.

It is funny the quality of people who find their way to the board. All they wanted were foreign trips, handsets and food. At a point I told them that they will make money at the long run if they allow the blueprint to be implemented but they had already sold their ‘soul’ for cash.