Something new, something different needed!
Unfortunately, this is not a new song, it has been sung before through periods that were even slightly better than now. At least at previous games the country came back with something, a medal of some colorisation. So, the Nigerian airwaves are now saturated with the frustration of the people in the area of sport […]
Unfortunately, this is not a new song, it has been sung before through periods that were even slightly better than now. At least at previous games the country came back with something, a medal of some colorisation.
So, the Nigerian airwaves are now saturated with the frustration of the people in the area of sport that they think does not require rocket science to conquer, just the application of some common sense! After all it is this same narrow understanding that makes successive governments not to think twice about appointing just about any body to handle sports in the country. Yet it is also true that succeeding in sports requires the application of very simple principles. So, why have we failed so badly?
The London Olympics have served, once again, to expose the depth of devastation that the sector has suffered. I will not run through the list of disturbing facts and statistics. Suffice it to give a few examples.
We have been told that the entire country has only one stadium facility good enough to host Super Eagles international football matches. Thats why, these days, the Esuene Stadium in Calabar has become the place of choice for the national team players coming from abroad. It is truly the only stadium in Nigeria today worthy of hosting the senior national football team matches., specifically because of its flat, grassy turf. Yet the turf of this courted bride of Nigerian footballers is not as good as any of the 35 standard football pitches on the campus of the University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom! I am not exaggerating. I counted them one by one!
Whilst it is ironic that even when the members of the Super Eagles and their coaches are complaining about the unsuitability of most grounds all over Nigeria as a result of their conversion to artificial surfaces, the Federal Government, we hear, is considering converting the very poor grass turf of the dilapidated National stadium, Surulere, Lagos, to an artificial one. I ask: would the installation of artificial turf now make the stadium suitable for football matches at the highest level? No! Thats why the Super Eagles are refusing these days to play on any one of the exploding number of such grounds in the country irrespective of how beautiful they may look to the eyes and to television.
I have always believed that the use of artificial turf is a massive international racket ‘sold’ to Third World countries with the active connivance of local administrators by a few powerful people within FIFA with interest in the artificial turf business. I am surprised that FIFA does not appreciate the grave danger this is doing to the football of developing countries. Why have the advanced cultures of football not converted to artificial turf? Therein lies the answer. Why has research continued around the Manchester City grounds in the UK on the improvement of grass pitches and not rubberised turf as we have littering the whole of Nigeria now? Rubber can never replace the feel and comfort of good, flat lush grass!
Thats why when Arsenal were to visit this summer for a friendly match in Nigeria they insisted and volunteered to fix the damaged grass of the Abuja stadium rather than expose their expensive players to the dangers and limitations of playing on the rubberised surface of Teslim Balogun stadium in Lagos when it was offered to them as an alternative!
That is a little about football. The other sports have fared no better. Take basketball that is gathering a lot of national interest and international attention these days. There are very few facilities in the entire country. Even the single indoor court of the National stadium, Lagos, the busiest in the entire country, does not meet the standard of an average secondary school in the United States (and I am also not exaggerating).
A good gymnasium is a critically important part of the overall physical development of athletes.
Whilst in the US I took the young football academicals of Oyo State to see the sports facilities of Clemson University, including their gymnasium. At the end of our visit we all agreed that in terms of quantum and quality Nigeria still has miles to go to meet the standard of what we saw in the university!
It is a similar situation as we go from sport to sport – a long boring tale of lack – lack of equipment, lack of basic infrastructure, lack of personnel, lack of facilities, lack of this, lack of that, lack of everything except the raw, gifted but wasting young sports talent!
The country’s sports are wallowing in poor quality and quantity of everything. The long and short of what I am saying, the damning conclusion, is that Nigeria, today, does not have the tools to produce quality athletes in all sports! The London Olympics and, indeed all the Olympics before it, confirm this. Our token victories at previous Olympics have largely been a product of external grooming and training, with the United States being the greatest source! Whereas Europe has helped with developing Nigerian football through the exposure of its young talents to professional football, athletics, basketball and tennis have been largely influenced by United States of America Colleges! With the giant strides in coaching, marketing, administration and the professional football league in the United States the country is gradually arriving the global stage as a major centre for development of youth and female football in the world. Nigeria can surely learn a few things and tricks from America.
We must use our common sense and do some new things and do them differently to achieve our desired objectives cheaply and effectively without adversely affecting our ultimate goal of developing our talented youths here in Nigeria just as Jamaica did. Thats why the recent visit organised by NASCOM to the US State of South Carolina is so important.
The Federal government must look closely at the result of this pioneering visit by an 18-player contingent of student footballers from Oyo State to the United States. It provides a new window of opportunity that must be explored. These young Under-17 champions of the 2012 Nigeria Academicals Football championship traversed the US State of South Carolina playing matches against youth teams in Greenville, Charleston, Rockhill and Columbia. Football coaches from High Schools and Colleges (Universities) in the State thronged the venues of the matches to watch the Nigerian lads play, and making an on-the-spot assessment of the efficacy of a new initiative conceived to explore and develop a relationship between young, qualified and Nigerians scholar-athletes with exceptional talent and American high schools and colleges.
After four matches, coaches have identified 8 of the 18 players as possible candidates for scholarships in their American institutions. They want them back immediately. We have returned with the players to Nigeria and would now start the rigorous internal process of evaluating their academic status and records so that they can be placed correctly in the right institutions and correct levels in the United States. The critical factor here is ‘authenticity’ – the authenticity of the students and their documents. That has been the country’s albatross that has prematurely terminated most previous schemes to exploit the invaluable and immeasurable opportunities that America gladly offers developing countries.
Nigeria must ultimately put in place its own first-class facilities and infrastructure and train its personnel to the highest level. Of course, doing these will take political will, huge finances and time even though, for now, little of these seem to be in any supply! So, whilst the country is looking for the motivation to provide them the country must use common sense and go on to use the opportunities that America offers to develop its sports talents cheaply and effectively! All that is required to succeed is a determination by all (coaches, administrators, teachers, parents, agents) to be morally upright.
American colleges are willing and ready to provide any number of qualified, gifted, young Nigerian athletes the opportunity of scholarships to get a good education and to attain their greatest standards and dreams in sports. The opportunities have been there all along but the usual corrupted Nigerian way of doing things has stymied it, rendering it impotent. The students presented are either not bona fide, are not the ages they claim, or have papers that are outrightly fake!
Against this background, NASCOM has set out to do things correctly, work with the Nigeria School Sports Federation, NSSF, to influence revival of sports in schools and competitions between them, organise competition amongst the best selected at States level (academical) and organise torus and competitions abroad for the State teams, national champions and the assembled national academicals team, where the opportunities for sports development and education abroad can be fully exploited. NASCOM shall insist on authenticity of the scheme and the process – use of only bona fide students still in school, with verifiable credentials and correct documentation on their ages – to kick-start this new journey to US colleges as a proper national project for sports development in Nigeria.
The Oyo State academicals team is back with incredible reports. They have set the stage for future development of a great future for Nigerian sports. Whilst we are still lamenting our present plight, let us also seize the moment and opportunity to do a few new things by doing what we already know differently. The Americans are willing and waiting.