By Paul Bassey

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 the past though, that nightmare was always punctuated by sweet transfer stories involving Nigerians.

It was always interesting following the movement of top Nigerian players in Europe, praying for them to land lucrative deals which directly translated to better performances for a national team that depended one hundred per cent on foreign based players. We can hardly forget the news generated by the movements of Kanu Nwankwo, Jay Jay Okocha, Obafemi Martins, Daniel Amokachi, Taribo West, Finidi George…..and just recently Mikel Obi.

I do not remember 442 Nigeria doing something on the transfer market last football season and the reason may be found in the magazine itself which gives the idea that as far as nothing was happening in the transfer market, it may not be a suitable topic for Nigerians to be interested in.
I quote.

“Nigeria is one of those African countries that depends ninety nine per cent on foreign based players for the prosecution of national assignments even up to U-17 level.

Because of this dependence or over dependence on players that are baked abroad it has become customary for Nigerians to be experts on foreign leagues, especially the European leagues.

We need to focus on foreign leagues to monitor and track our players. We need to study the foreign leagues to better appreciate the form of our stars and the monitoring has become so concentrated that we have become addicted to those leagues to the detriment and development of the domestic game which sometimes is inappropriately tagged “ local league “ where the word “ local “ depicts sub standard.

We are so transfixed on the foreign league that whereas we can reel off by head squad lists of a lot of foreign teams especially the Premiership quartet of Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, we do not know those who play for even the most popular of Nigerian clubs.

A combination of the above stated interest has been fuelled in the past by the success of Nigerian stars plying their trades abroad.

Not going too far back to the ground breaking but accidental movement of Stephen Keshi to Belgium through Cote Divoire, Nigeria only bloomed when her players started becoming fixtures in foreign leagues.

We owe our success in the main to top movements of Nigerian players to big clubs in Europe, movements that rubbed off on our football, and one remembers some of such.

Step out Nwankwo Kanu,(Inter, Arsenal) Victor Ikpeba, (AS Monaco, Borussia Dortmund) Austin Jay Jay Okocha, (PSG, Bolton) Daniel Amokachi,(Club Brugge, Everton) Finidi George, (Ajax, Real Betis Ipswich) Emmanuel Amuneke, (Barcelona) Taribo West, (Inter Milan) Obafemi Martins, (Inter, Newcastle) Joseph Yobo ( Everton) and Mikel Obi (Chelsea).

The success of these players in their clubs and the attendant media hype that accompanied their movements placed Nigeria prominently in the proverbial World map of football.

The story that best mirrors Nigeria’s place in the sun can be attributed to Austin Jay Jay Okocha who after the 1998 World Cup moved from Fenerbache in Turkey to Paris Saint Germain in France for a world shocking transfer fee of 17 million pounds.

This amount was considered incredible because the French record transfer fee then was put at 13 million pounds.

Can we also cast our mind back to the transfer war that raged between two football giants Manchester United and Chelsea over our own Mikel Obi?

That Chelsea finally agreed to pay off Man U a whooping 12 million pounds only went to amplify the perceived worth of the Nigerian youth international. Let us also put under discussion the success recorded by Nwankwo Kanu and Finidi George in Ajax.

Kanu was to move to inter Milan for over 3 million pounds and from there to Arsenal for about 5 million pounds where he took with him thousands of Nigerian fans for an incredible stay with the Gunners.
Are we going to forget that Emmanuel Amuneke did play for the great Barcelona team? Or that Taribo West starred for Inter Milan just as Obafemi Martins was recruited  by Newcastle to wear the legendary number 9 jersey vacated by Alan Shearer?

Then, the lean years.

Nigerian players figuratively disappeared from the radar of world football news. For over three seasons there was no player to attract world attention on the big stage. Even the “back door” movement of Osaze Odenwigie from Lokomotiv Moscow to West Bronwich Albion and his attendant lethal finishes in front of goal did little to quench the taste of a Nigerian football public used to big time movements on the transfer market, until Taye Taiwo appeared on the scene, in a surprise 12 million Euro move from Olympic Marseille in France to Italian league winners A.C Milan.”

Taiye Taiwo’s transfer therefore brings back those nostalgic feelings of old, hoping that from now on we will no longer wait for two long to register successes in the transfer market, different from the peanuts that our players now receive as they jostle for playing relevance in small clubs, lesser leagues.

One only hopes that Taiye Taiwo, as he told the magazine will be able to pay back the confidence reposed on him.

For Victor Macdonald
A word of consolation for this young and enterprising players agent, coaches manager and academy owner who last week lost his dear mother.

We pray the good lord gives you the fortitude to bear this great loss.
For Lekan Olaseinde

Felicitations on the arrival of a bouncing baby boy to Lekan Olaseinde who is the Abuja sports bureau chief of Compass Newspapers.

I have been reliably informed that mother and child are doing well.