By Patrick Omorodion

The Bible tells us in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 23 that “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart”. It was talking about diligence which the dictionary describes as “constant in effort to accomplish something; attentive and persistent in doing anything”.

This is exactly what one man, Jenkins Alumona and his team at Flykite Productions which includes the versatile Bamidele Johnson aka BJ, have been doing for many years now. And it has yielded good fruit where others, especially those charged with the development and promotion of our football have failed.

Trained as a journalist with bias in sports reporting, Mr. Alumona veered into sports marketing and promotion after his stint with communication firm, Globacom.

He started by promoting boxing which was dead as the sports ministry was no longer able to do so either owing to inability of the managers of the sector to think out of the box or just lack of interest and quest for personal aggrandizement.

Even though he was promoting boxing, his love for football never waned. He thought of ways of bringing back the glory days of Nigerian football when fans travelled far to support their clubs during league matches.

Just as he was ruminating over it, the sports ministry, believing the league was not being run properly and unlawfully following a court order which declared the body organising the league illegal, dissolved the body and set up caretaker body which it named Interim Management Committee, IMC.

Headed by a former lawmaker, Gbenga Elegbeleye, the IMC came out with an abridged format of the league to be able to meet the deadline of submission of the country’s representatives in the CAF competitions.

While the abridged league was on, Flykite Productions came up with its own football competition which it called Naija Super 8.

To pick participants for it, it gave football fans the opportunity to pick their best two teams from the six geo political zones of the country. The idea was novel and aimed at drawing them back to match venues to watch their darling clubs as it was back in the 70s and 80s.

With 12 teams, a play-off was organised in Eket, Akwa Ibom state with good money for all the participating teams. From this exercise, six teams were to qualify for the finals in Lagos. It decided that two teams will be given wildcards to make up the number to eight.

Meanwhile, a new club based in Lagos, Sporting Lagos, probably taking its name from Sporting Lisbon in the Portuguese league had just been promoted from the Nigeria National League, NNL.

The Lagos side along Akwa United of Uyo got the wildcards to join, Enyimba from South East, Rivers United from South South, Remo Stars, another new team making waves from the South West, Katsina United from the North West, Lobi Stars from North Central and Gombe United from North East.

The stage was set for the big event, the first of its kind in Nigeria and the venue was the popular Onikan stadium, formerly known as King George V Stadium but rechristened Mobolaji Johnson Arena after it was renovated and upgraded by the Lagos state government which has yearned for top flight football once again on its land.

The stadium was looking great and good for television. And because the matches were shown live, it drew the attention of fans who hitherto shunned local matches to the artistic display of football skills by the players.

Mr. Alumona, being a media man himself, knew the power of publicity and provided for it adequately as the matches were not only talked about on radio and television, but were equally reported in newspapers.

No wonder fans turned out in their numbers to watch the final between new boys, Sporting Lagos who ‘demolished’ traditional teams to reach the final as well as Remo Stars who just qualified to represent the country in the CAF Champions League in the upcoming season.

The arena was packed full and the atmosphere was electrifying, making anyone watching it for the first time on television to think he or she was watching an English Premier League match.

What excited me most was the fact that fans not only thronged the arena to watch games but they came with their girlfriends, wives and children, a thing they wouldn’t have contemplated some years back.

This maybe because of the facelift the stadium has be given as well as the secured atmosphere provided by the organisers.

On the part of the players, they put everything into the matches because there had a prize they were looking up to as against the regular league they had played in the past with little or nothing as prize money.

For every match played in the two groups of four, each team got N3 million for each of the three matches played. The four semi finalists also got N3 million each while the runners-up, Remo Stars and champions Sporting Lagos pocketed N9 million and N25 million respectively.

This came at a time the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF recently organised a lackluster FA Cup final in Asaba, Delta state with near empty stands at the Stephen Keshi stadium.

The publicity was nothing to write home about as fans living in Asaba hardly knew there was a football final going on there. Past FA Cup final matches were like carnivals back in the day when fans start trooping into the venue as early as 12 noon for a 4pm kick-off.

With the success of the Naija Super 8, Flykite Productions has shown that football development and promotion are no rocket science. It needs just determination, the right attitude as in sincerity of purpose and integrity.

You must earn the trust of sponsors who throw their money into the project by ensuring its judicious use to the satisfaction of all, especially the players and officials of participating teams.

A situation where organisers smile to their banks while teams are given peanuts like is replete with our sports and football authorities drives away sponsors and kills a dream project.

Kudos must be given to Flykite Productions for this inaugural edition which ended successfully and proved to the NFF that their league could be run better.

A warning however, should be passed to the bourgeoisie who thought that the stadium atmosphere was their cozy living rooms and should be devoid of noise. They should stay away from the arena next time because football is fans’ game and not a grave yard.