FIFA and Confederation of African Football executive board
member Jacques Anouma, who is also president of the Cote d’ Ivorie Football
Federation, has given me and every right thinking person a reason why we don’t
need a financial manager or accountant to manage our affairs.
A financial manager since 1978, who has managed various
multinational companies and some Ivorian ones, Anouma worked with the likes of
accounting firms like the moribund Arthur Andersen Consulting that gave pass
marks to financially dead companies. Then, last week, employed a man whose last
yearly wage was £250,000 and decided to pay him £2 million per annum.
Impossible? Well the man Anouma employed is not a ghost, he is
Sven-Goran Eriksson, the former manager of Notts Country football club campaigning
in the lower echelons of the English league hierarchy.
Before he ‘hammered’ or ‘caught mugu’ last Sunday, like my
brothers in Ojuelegba will say when they have done a successful ‘419 job’,
Eriksson was earning a basic salary of £250,000-a-year – as manager at the
lowly League Two club as director of football.
The Swede’s contract with the club, which was to last for a
five-year period, was on a basic salary of £4,800-a-week, with bonuses to
reward success. Eriksson could eventually end up taking home up to £1 million
gross a year. That would have happened if he won titles, and if he introduced
some of the home grown talents into the first team.
Anouma sins
Shouldn’t Anouma, as an accountant, have asked for Eriksson’s
last wage at his last place of work before determining his new salary?
If he did this, then how did he arrive at the new salary?
Especially against the backdrop that, before he took the Ivorian job from the
lowly Notts County, Eriksson was sacked in his last three jobs for
non-performance. He was sacked as manager of England, Manchester City and
Mexico.
In fact, he had been pushing his resume across the globe
including Nigeria looking for a club or a national team to coach without luck,
before he finally ‘hammered’ last Sunday.
Worldwide, his wage has been roundly condemned, but, not
surprisingly, Eriksson justified it, saying he does not believe he is being
paid “that well”.
Asked how he can justify his huge wage in country where the
average daily wage is £3, Eriksson said, “I don’t think I am paid that well.
But I’m happy. I don’t think I’m even close to what the England manager has.
But that’s okay for me; I have no problems with that. What is most important is
to do a good World Cup.
It’s a World Cup and a good team, a lot of good football players
and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Asked if it was right that a country with severe financial
difficulties should be spending so much on a football manager, he told
TalkSport “Of course. Are you going to say the same thing if we go into another
context, shall we say a surgeon? If they have the money to employ a top-class
world surgeon to go in and do some work for them, are you going to say that
they shouldn’t pay that surgeon the money?”
Swedish connection
Ah well. Nigeria also recently employed a Swedish coach, Lars
Lagerback, and like Eriksson his salary and the circumstances surrounding
employment are also causing controversy. Before becoming the Eagles’ coach,
Lagerbäck was paid 2.4 million Swedish Krona for 2008. That’s equal to $325
000. We mustn’t forget that in the same year, he paid taxed to the tune of 1.4
million Krona ($190, 000), so of his total income of 2.4 million Krona, he paid
taxes of approximately 58% of his wages.
Yet for the few months that he will working in Nigeria,
Lagerback will be paid $1.5 million.
Or could it be that Anouma, who this reporter has met and who
has claimed that he loves Cote d’ Ivore, has done what Glen Hoddle and John
Shittu accused the panel that interviewed coaches in Nigeria did?
Hoddle alleged he had been assured by the panel that he will
coach the Eagles, but he was then dropped because he refused to tell the world
that he is being paid $1.5million whereas he will be paid $900,000. Doing the
mathematics, he was supposed to give a kick-back of $600,000. Is Anouma playing
the same game in Cote d’Ivorie? Until he comes to justify why Eriksson’s value
has shot up over night without any noticeable achievement, we may have to
believe that African sports administrators are selling their conscience and
soul for money, like common whores.
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