It
is a fact that without footballers there will be no game called
football. What this clearly means is that footballers should be central
to the calculations of administrators of the game.
In our case in
Nigeria that does not appear to be the case. Here, football
administrators carry on without the slightest consideration for the men
and women in the trenches, those who pick up injuries and are laid up
for considerable periods.
In the nearly one
year that crises have engulfed Nigerian football, scant regard has been
paid as to the feelings or opinions of footballers whether playing here
in Nigeria or abroad.
Quite tragic
indeed. But what is even more tragic is the attitude of the players
themselves. In all the time we have had Nigeria’s football managers
drag the game in the mud through knavery and chicanery; our footballers
have remained strangely quiet. Not one of them has spoken up against
the danger posed to the game by the bickering among those whose
responsibility it is to ensure development of the game.
Everywhere football
is taken seriously, there are players’ unions established to protect
the interest of footballers and to also ensure that there is seamless
administration of the game. Nigeria was without a players’ union for
decades until Harrison Jalla and Austin Popo filled the void with the
establishment of the National Association of Nigerian footballers
(NANF) in 1991.
I watched with
interest and amazement as Nigerian players both those playing here in
Nigeria and those outside pretended as if the association did not
exist. For many years until former Nigeria Football Federation (NFF)
Sani Lulu drove a wedge between them and ultimately splintered the
organisation, NANF remained a two-man body.
Before Jalla and
Popo parted, they tried their best to sensitise players, retired and
active on the need to recognise their rights and their place within the
football system. They hit brick wall principally because the
foreign-based footballers felt that an association formed by former
footballers who did not enjoy quality playing time for the senior
national team, the Super Eagles, was beneath their dignity. On the
other hand, the players in Nigeria were too naïve not to see the
life-line presented by the formation of the association.
Today, they are
paying the price for that short-sightedness. Charlatans have taken over
football administration, men who neither played the game at any serious
level nor are distinguished by any special administrative acumen they
are bringing to the running of the sport.
Time for action
In their ignorance,
our footballers cannot contemplate the ruin the journeymen
superintending over the administration will bring it to if unchallenged.
Elsewhere, players
go on strike or speak up as one body when their interests are
threatened. In places like Spain and Italy where the lot of footballers
is considerably better than that of our players, footballers readily
down tools to force their position through.
Not so for our
players. Even when they are owed amounts running into millions by their
different clubs, the best they come up with aside sneaking to the back
waters of Europe and Asia for trials is to engage in hopeless hand
wringing.
Had our players had
the good sense to sign up to NANF their lot would probably be different
today. Unfortunately for them they are stuck with a league that is
apart from being badly organised, has officials with a mercenary
outlook and disposition to impoverish them daily.
As our players look
the other way, the game suffers and Jalla, who had the good sense to
provide them with a window of opportunity, is being vilified.
Jalla may have his
shortcoming but I say it here again as I’ve done elsewhere that without
his intervention last year, Nigerian football may have been spared all
the heat and tension of the last eight months or so but would have
collapsed one day without warning under the weight of the malfeasance
of the men administering football.
I think our
footballers have fooled around long enough. The time has come for them
to pull their socks up and take a stand. They must begin to look at the
bigger picture and stop being distracted by inanities.
What is at stake at the moment is far too important for them to sit on the fence.
If they took time to look around them they’ll discover that a good
number of the men forced out of football administration last year, are
gradually finding their way back to the football house. What that
should tell them is that the problems bedeviling football may be far
from over.
