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We have wasted the
years destroying the foundation of sports development. The emphases
have been on developing sports from the top.

We turned the pyramid over and stood it on a fragile base, its tip.

Governments,
individuals and organisations, all out in search of immediate
popularity, have built a culture of pseudo-professionalism in sports.
They pour money into irrelevant projects that hamper the future of
sports in several ways.

A good example is
the Super Eagles and the World Cup. If for any reason the Super Eagles
win the World Cup, it would mean nothing, I repeat nothing for Nigerian
sports because we do not have the structures to explore the vast impact
of a World Cup victory. We have shown these many times over.

Though I strongly
advocate government’s investment in sports, this investment must be on
sports development. It should not be money spent on payment of
allowances to the Super Eagles, while other sports cannot get training
grounds, coaches and equipment. We are not against the Super Eagles
earning $10,000 (N1.5 million) a game, or whatever the going rate is.
The Nigeria Football Federation should find that money, so that
government can invest the money it currently spends on football – and a
lot more – on enduring ventures. Government money should be wisely
spent on facilities, scholarships and training.

Private sector participation

Sports development
is impossible without sponsorships from the private sector. Such
sponsorships will come when government has laid the proper foundations
for sports development through policies and its own investments. The
emphasis should be on sports development, rather than promotion.

The constant
reference to the world as a global village, which initially tended to
look at the mass media, has spread to all aspects of life, more than 40
years since the Canadian mass communication scholar Marshall McLuhan
came up with the idea. Making sports development professional would
entail getting help from all parts of the world. We must search for the
best hands for this. There are many Nigerian sports people abroad, well
educated, professional, patriotic and willing to return home to revive
Nigerian sports.

Even at home, there are many of them who have no place in sports because of the narrow patterns used in sports administration.

The challenges
Sports development without the schools will not work. At the school
levels, athletes are young, teachable and have the energy for sports.

Without sports
development, there would be no proper professional sports. It is time
we re-enthroned the roles that the Conference of Principals of
Secondary Schools in Nigeria used to play in sports development through
the Schools Sports Federation of Nigeria. A similar structure is
necessary for primary schools.

Without the
co-operation of the Federal Ministry of Education, this programme would
run into grave difficulties, especially in the areas of scheduling
sports events and training to avoid clashes with school programmes.

A matter of urgency

The federal
government should, as a matter of urgency, fully implement the free
meals in primary schools and subsidised meals in secondary schools, as
an interim measure to counter the growing cases of mal-nutrition among
Nigerian children. Many children would be in school even if it is for
the meals and sports.

A census of
educational institutions about 10 years ago, located 42,000 public
primary schools in Nigeria. This illustrates the enormity of the
challenge of developing sports. Let us for this purpose stick to
football. If there are six classes in each of those schools and we are
providing two balls per class (remember female football), we will
require 504,000 balls. Can one ball last a class for a year? If we give
them two balls, we are talking of 1,008,000 annually. At only N5,000 a
ball, getting balls to the primary schools alone would cost about N5.04
billion. The truth is that most of the primary schools have more than
two streams per class. I doubt if there are up to 100,000 balls in all
the sports stores in Nigeria today. There are more than 30 other sports
requiring various equipment, at various levels.

It is up to the government to attract investors to take up this business opportunity by manufacturing the equipment here.

Sports development has to start at the primary school level.

Physical education
trainers should be provided for these schools, using the Local
Government Areas as the base. There are currently 774 of these Local
Government Areas.

Most of the schools have no sports facilities, no equipment.

At the initial stage, the emphases will be in identifying schools
that have some level of facilities and help them to develop them for
common use of nearby schools.

Sunshine
Stars are four points behind league leaders Dolphin FC of Port-Harcourt
but the Akure-based side will hope to reduce the gap when they play
Ocean Boys in one of Sunday’s fixtures in the Nigeria Premier League
(NPL).

Sunshine have
enjoyed a blistering home form in their adopted home ground in Abeokuta
winning all their matches, and will be hoping that league leaders,
Dolphins stutter as they also travel to Kano to play against Zamfara
United today.

Gbenga Odubote who
is in charge of Sunshine Stars is already looking beyond today’s match
as he remains certain that his team will win its first league title at
the end of the 2010/2011 season.

Sunshine was
unlucky to lose 1-0 by Dolphins in their last match, in the opinion of
Coach Odubote, who said, “We did not deserve to lose”.

“We did not deserve
to lose that game because Dolphin did not play better than us but that
is football and we have to forget that game and move on,” Ogunbote told
SuperSport.com.

The former Gateway
FC handler said the team has no excuse not to win today’s game and also
do well in the league overall as the club management have been very
responsive to the team’s needs “Financial entitlements to the players
are paid as at when due and that is enough motivation to the players.
So there is no excuse for failure,” he said.

“We want to win the
league title and we will achieve that target. We have the players to do
the job and the sponsors have been wonderful,” he concluded.

Sunshine Stars are
second on the NPL log with 26 points from 14 matches; and a win against
Ocean Boys could cut Dolphins lead to just one point – if Dolphins do
not get any change in Kano.

Dolphins seek win
at difficult Zamfara Aware of the hot breath on their neck, Dolphins FC
will be seeking to extend their lead at with a win in Kano against
Zamfara United though they know it will not be an easy task.

Dolphins currently
lead the table with 30 points from 14 games, four points clear of their
closest rivals, Sunshine Stars who are at home this weekend.

Dolphins also have one of the best away forms this season, having picked up
maximum points on the road on two occasions, in Jos against Plateau
United and in Ilaro against Crown but Dolphins have never picked a
point on the road to Zamfara United in the history of both clubs.

Last season,
Dolphins lost 3-2 despite leading 2-1 until the 87th minute and in 2007
the year Dolphins were relegated, they also lost 1-0 to Zamfara United.

Other matches It
will be a clash of two teams with identical form guide of just one win
each in their last five games. Though the Flying Antelopes may have won
this same game last season by with a two-goal margin, Alphonsus Dike’s
men are yet to score in the last 270 minutes of football in the league.
However against a Kwara United team who have been awful in recent
times, Rangers might just get back their scoring boots today to add to
the 17 goals that they have scored at the Nnamdi Azikwe this season but
with no goals scored away.

Also in Ijebu Ode,
Shooting Stars will have to put behind them the one year ban handed to
their star striker Gbolahan Salami as they play bottom side, Jos
University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) Football Club. Though the Oluyole
Warriors have been far from impressive in their last two home matches,

the team is expected to get back to winning ways against a JUTH side yet to score any point away from home.

The last Sunday fixture is between two teams meeting for the first
time ever in the top flight; Bukola Babes and Lobi Stars. Bukola Babes
who many have described as the revelation team of this season will not
only want to maintain their unbeaten run but also garner the maximum
three points to maintain her status as a top four team on the league
table.

He
wanted to become one of the next great Nigerian footballer. He had the
chance to change his life forever and to follow in the steps of the
Okochas, Wests and the Akpobories. But on the way to becoming a
national hero, his dreams were burst like a bubble. A stroke of fate,
injury, brought his career to a sad end. He eventually pieced his life
together and is now giving hope to the boys and girls living on the
streets of Ikeja, Lagos.

Now aged 27,
Ndubuisi Duruna remembers a time, when he lived the dream of hundreds
of thousands of children across Nigeria – to emerge as a professional
football player and eventually to play for the famous Manchester United
or Real Madrid.

From the cradle

Duruna was born in
Warri, Delta State. It was while he was in secondary school that Duruna
discovered his interest in sports and in particular for football. From
this moment onwards, there was only one place to find him, at the
training grounds and streets all over Warri.

His father had
hoped he will study educational science, but after participating in the
local Principal’s Cup, Duruna’s talent could no longer be hidden. This
ultimately caught the attention of former international, Mike Anongbi
when scouting for clubs from abroad. In cooperation with former Ghana
professionals Joshua Kesta and Tajudeen Agboola, Anongbi set the basis
for a career full of hope and promise.

The journey begins

Duruna has always been confident and he believes that with sports and hard work anything was possible.

The first stage to
climb was the greasy pole he found in his birthplace where he grew up
to wear the jersey of a local club called Delta Strikers, which
featured in Warri’s local league.

A short time later,
he took the opportunity of scoring goals in the Benin league and
changed clubs a few months later to play for Trade Bombers in Nigeria’s
capital, Abuja. But his nomadic spirit and quest for new challenges
helped to boost his career and saw Duruna joining Bendel United in Edo
State. Again, he stayed only for a short while before leaving the club.
From then on he went to Pioneer FC of Aladja, and a short time after
left to play for Union Bank Football Club in Lagos, where he was shaped
into an extraordinary football player in regard to boys of the same age.

It was at Union
Bank that he also developed a great personality with an enormous mental
strength that in combination with his brilliant ways of moving the ball
across the field. This stint in Lagos helped him take his talent
outside of the country to demonstrate his abilities in the Republic of
Benin where he was cheered on by the fans of Dragon FC. But only six
months later, he returned to Nigeria and eventually managed to make the
expected career breakthrough.

In 2001, after
three months in Lagos, Duruna received an offer to play abroad and
finally his lifelong ambition was able to set sail and the next port of
call was to score goals in Turkey. He spent three years in the second
division at Akallat FC; scouts brought him to the United Arab Emirates
where he soon gained the title “darling of the public” for his newest
club Diba Hisen FC. For one and a half years he led his team in Dubai
from victory to victory before going to Bahrain where he wore the
jersey of Moscora FC for one year. He returned to Dubai to woo the fans
in the stadium of Dubai Diamond but in the same year he changed clubs
and moved to Oman where destiny took a decisive turn.

Decisive turn

Duruna narrated the
incident saying: “It was a 50/50 challenge for the ball against an
attacker of Nusnus FC. At that moment, I just felt a slight twinge but
never thought it would develop into an injury that would require an
operation.” But because I did not trust the doctors from Syria and
Kazakhstan who were supposed to attend to the injury, I decided against
having the operation.”

Duruna was also
anxious concerning the qualifications of the physicians and he was not
convinced of the language barrier. He left Oman for Dubai to start
another stint in division 2 but that was where it was discovered that
he needed an urgent operation.

“In my life I have
never had any kind of operation. I called my mum (mother), who advised
me to come home and seek local therapy which I did. But unfortunately,
the pain has not been cleared. I still feel pain sometimes.”

Though the injury
has abated, the trauma and the disappointment are still present. From
time to time the physical pain is revisited when he even cannot stand
for more than ten minutes without suffering acute pain.

The fight-back

Despite the disappointment, Duruna didn’t abandon his dream; he just modified it and fought his way back to football.

Duruna may even get
his career on track again if he can have corrective surgery on the
knee. “I have been told that a bolt may have to be inserted on my knee
cap. My girl-friend, who is Italian-American, is trying to help me have
the surgery in Florida, though I may opt to have it in France, when the
Homeless World Cup holds in August.”

How did he become the coach of the Homeless World Cup team?

“When attending the
Sunday mass at my church in Lagos, the bishop introduced me to Yomi
Kuku, a director of a non-governmental organisation called Search and
Groom.” This organisation is helping to give homeless youths a meaning
to life using football in Ikeja, a Lagos suburb.

Kuku offered to
assist Duruna to get into coaching and soon he started volunteering in
the Next Hero Project within the scope of the organisation. In 2008 he
started out as a member of the scouting team. Ever since, he has
discovered players for the team. He is now in charge of the team as the
Chief Coach.

Today his career is setting a good example for the boys and girls in Lagos.

“Though I will like
to play again, even if it is at a fifth division side, I am also drawn
to coaching and I see that even if I did not make it to the top, I can
help one of the boys I coach go higher than I ever achieved,” he said.
Durunna has great passion, discipline and soulfulness, and with these
he is working his way up the ladder and his dreams of being the best
footballer in the world has now metamorphosed into becoming the beast
coach in the world. With this drive and commitment, he has become an
example of social commitment and the change of society in the country.

Eventually the boy born in Warri has now become the boy from Ikeja.

Samson
Siasia can hold his head high and take pride in the performance of his
Super Eagles side in last Wednesday’s friendly match against the Leone
Stars.

Reactions trailing
the game have been mixed with some expressing satisfaction while it is
the reverse for others. But former teammates of the one-time Super
Eagles star are understandably backing Siasia to do well on the job.

Former Super Eagles
midfielder Emeka Ezeugo is one of such individuals and has called on
Nigerians to be patient with the former Heartland FC coach.

“I took a lot of
positives out of that game, and I believe he will definitely give
Nigerians a Super Eagles side we’re all going to be proud of. We only
have to be patient with him and the results will come,” said Ezeugo,
who was previously Siasia’s coaching assistant at Heartland.

“There were a lot
of new players in that team. Most of them had never played together and
only had a day to prepare for the game but I was impressed with the way
they played.

He added: “Yes, the
coordination wasn’t really there, particularly in the second half, but
they fought for every ball. They were winning most of the loose balls
and that is a good sign. It could mean only one thing, and that is that
these guys are ready to play for the coach.” Former Super Eagles
goalkeeper and skipper, Peter Rufai, also a one-time teammate of Siasia
is also confident of Siasia’s ability to deliver the goods if given all
the needed support.

“Siasia has shown
that he is capable of working as a coach in the past and I still have
the same belief that he will succeed if he is given every support to do
so,” said Rufai in an interview with Supersport. “He can go ahead and
achieve great things with the national team just like we did as players
in the 1990s.” Prospects With the performance on the night of some of
the previously unheralded players such as Ekigho Ehiosun, Ahmed Musa
and Joel Obi, who was so outstanding that he got a rare standing
ovation from the ever critical Lagos crowd after he was taken off by
Siasia midway through the second half, the Super Eagles could actually
match the feat of the all-conquering side of the 1990s.

But that will not
to come to pass in the opinion of former Super Eagles winger, Tijani
Babangida unless Siasia finds a way to gradually replace some of the
country’s aging stars with younger ones.

“It’s a fair
outing. It’s their first outing and they did well. But it was obvious
that the game belongs to the new generation of players and not the old
lions who have been there for long,” said Babangida. “I doff my hat for
the team but Siasia should drop the old lions to allow the new
generation of players come into it fully. The future belongs to them.
And I think the cap fits them.” That line of action appears to be on
Siasia’s agenda going by what he told reporters at the end of
Wednesday’s encounter.

“We still have a lot of guys there that we have not seen,” said
Siasia. “I have got to give them a chance. Like I said we are
rebuilding. We still have to see other players and as we move along we
make our corrections and we will look at the areas that we think we
have to put some other players in.”

Lagos
was agog when the Super Eagles finally returned to play last Wednesday
at the “Centre of Excellence” after close to a decade of absence. And
as early as 12 noon on Wednesday, February 9, the gates of the Teslim
Balogun Stadium (TBS) was opened for the match billed for 7pm to fans
who were hungry to see their stars in action.

Even though the
Eagles won 2-1 win over the Leone Stars of Sierra Leone some fans are
still counting their losses and others the gains accruing from the
hurriedly arranged international friendly match.

More money

Kayode Olaniran is
one of the lucky ones, the middle-aged Okada rider plying the Surulere
axis not far from the venue of match said he was less bothered about
the outcome of the match as he was more concerned with the brisk
business opportunity the game availed him.

“I didn’t watch the
match but I am happy the Eagles were here, business was very good for
me; there were more passengers and we could even charge them higher” he
said.

Also for the
hundreds of traders that had one souvenir or the other and also snacks
to sell, it was just not another day as some people claimed their sales
increased over 150%.

“I am very happy
about this match, the leftover of the vuvuzela I could not finish
selling during the Nigeria 2009 were all sold in less than four hours,”
an ecstatic trader that wants to be addressed simply as Iyabo stated.

For others seeing
the Super Eagles stars was a dream come true as many reckoned they have
only seen the likes of Mikel Obi who sat through the game, Osaze
Odemwingie and the rest of the players only on television.

Sour points

Looking back also,
some complaints have also trailed the epic return of the “big boys” to
play in Lagos. While some complained of pick pocketing, there was also
the issue of poor crowd control outside the stadium.

Sports analyst,
Godwin Enakhena expressed disgust at the manner in which the bouncers
assigned to maintain order at the venue carried out their job saying
they were not civilised in their approach.

While it is almost certain that the Eagles might have kissed Lagos
good bye yet again majorly for the fear of playing on artificial turfs
like the ones at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, the fans attitude towards
the end match has also raised some eye brows Augustine Equavoen who is
in charge of the U-23 national team said it was high time for not just
the Lagos fans but all Nigerians to know that the Super Eagles is the
country’s team and deserves all the backing they can get.

Barcelona plan to
drop the UNICEF logo from the front of their first-team shirts from
July and replace it with the name of their new Qatari sponsor, a vice
president of the La Liga club said on Tuesday.

The Spanish
champions are one of the few clubs in world soccer not to have a
corporate logo on their shirts, instead displaying the name of the
United Nations Children’s Fund, for which they pay the organisation 1.5
million Euros a year.

However, they last
month agreed a record five-year sponsorship deal with Qatar Sports
Investment worth 30 million Euros a season and will have “Qatar
Foundation” emblazoned on their shirt fronts from July 1.

“It has been
decided that the Qatar Foundation logo will go on the front of the
shirt, on the breast,” Barca vice president Javier Faus said at a news
conference.

“In the end, there
will be only two words ‘Qatar Foundation’ in yellow,” he added. “UNICEF
will go on the back underneath the player’s name.”

The sponsorship
deal, the biggest for any soccer club, will net as much as 170 million
Euros, including 15 million euros for commercial rights for the current
season and a bonus for winning titles that could be as much as 5
million.

The agreement with the Emirate prompted allegations they had sold out and were compromising their ideals for material gain.

Barca officials
argued that the injection of funds at a delicate time for the club’s
finances was necessary to pay for the development of their sports teams.

“We continue to
have significant structural problems, which we have been burdened with
for some years, but which are our structural problems now and which we
have to deal with,” Faus said on Tuesday.

“We have solved some of them with the Qatar Foundation sponsorship deal but we still have many challenges ahead.”

Back logo

Faus said it was
not clear whether the UNICEF logo would be allowed to appear on shirts
worn in the Champions League, Europe’s elite club competition.

“What we can guarantee is that every FC Barcelona shirt that is sold around the world will have the UNICEF logo on the back.”

Qatar was chosen in
December by soccer’s governing body FIFA to host the World Cup in 2022,
when it will become the first Arab country to stage the finals, and
Barca coach Pep Guardiola was one of the ambassadors for the bid.

The sponsorship
deal includes a commitment for the club to play one friendly per season
and the Qatar Foundation will take part in joint projects with UNICEF
and Barca’s own foundation.

Founded by Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in
1995, the Qatar Foundation funds projects focusing on education,
scientific research and community development. It is also engaged in
several corporate joint ventures.

Rarely
can a league match between Juventus and Inter Milan have been more
important than Sunday’s Turin clash (20:45 Nigerian time) despite their
long and bitter rivalry.

Juve against Inter
is known as the “Derby of Italy” given the hostility between the sides
following their title battles over the years and the fallout from a
2006 match-fixing scandal.

But Sunday’s game
with just over three months left in the season will be especially
hard-fought with Inter needing a win to put further pressure on
stuttering leaders AC Milan and Juve desperate for three points to stop
their season collapsing.

“Home or away, when
Inter play Juventus it’s always a huge game and a very tense affair.
It’s important that things don’t get out of hand on the pitch or off
it, but we know it will be a massive game for them and for us too,”
Inter president Massimo Moratti told reporters.

“The championship
race is very much alive and fortunately we’re starting to get involved
in it again now. I think it’s fantastic for the fans of all teams.”

Third-placed Inter
trail Milan by five points with a game in hand after new boss Leonardo
helped the European champions recover from a poor start to the campaign
under Rafa Benitez.

Last weekend’s 5-3
win over AS Roma showed off their refound verve upfront, even with
Diego Milito now out injured for a month, although they are leaking
goals much more regularly than they did in their treble season last
term under Jose Mourinho.

Fretting fans

Once mighty Juve on
the other hand are down in eighth having finished a poor seventh last
term but last Saturday’s 3-1 win at Cagliari when new signing
Alessandro Matri scored twice against his former club offered some hope
to their fretting fans.

Their frustration
goes back to 2006 when Juve were stripped of their 2005 and 2006
Scudetti and demoted to Serie B for trying to procure favourable
referees for matches.

Despite bouncing
straight back to the top-flight and finishing third the following
season, Luigi Del Neri’s side have failed to rediscover their former
glory with a host of average-quality signings and injury problems not
helping.

Juve have accused
Inter of also being involved in the 2006 scandal and getting away scot
free. The Italian soccer federation is probing new phone tap evidence
from the last decade related to Inter, who deny wrongdoing.

Milan, who host Parma on Saturday (1700), will hope the pair cancel
each other out in Turin while second-placed Napoli have an awkward
encounter at Roma in seventh (1945).