The Nigerian
Football League (NFL), since its founding in 1972, has been running
weekly fixtures of professional football matches during soccer seasons
at various venues across Nigeria. Midweek fixtures are also part of the
bargain.
The arrangement
means that football clubs have to travel to match venues every week for
matches and when they are not on the road, they are at home hosting
visiting teams.
Consequently, various hotels and hospitality centres across the country enjoy sustained patronage throughout the soccer season.
The transport
companies, the highways and even airports are also kept busy, as
players, officials, stakeholders and millions of fans regularly travel
to different match venues for the football tournaments.
The good old days
While the home
teams enjoy massive support from their fans, the visiting sides just
have to cope with the cheers from the few supporters, who travel along
with them.
“It is fun to
travel with clubs; it provides the soccer fans the ample opportunity to
relax and enjoy good football. It also enables them to explore what the
host cities can offer them before, during and after the matches,” says
Jonathan Okwuolisa a football pundit.
“We often relax
over plates of pepper soup and beer to relive memories of games in
cities like Lagos, Enugu, Kaduna, Minna, Port Harcourt, Jos, Ibadan and
Kano, where we travel to for the matches.”
Okwuolisa, a
die-hard supporter of Enugu Rangers International FC in the 1970s and
the 1980s, recalls that Enugu city then had several entertainment
spots, where the players and club supporters gathered to relax after
the day’s match.
“We sponsored
ourselves for such tours and we never depended on the club or sponsors
to fund our trips to watch matches. All we wanted was good soccer and
we had huge doses of that in cities such as Benin, Jos, Ibadan, Minna,
Kaduna and Kano,” he said.
Okwuolisa recalls
that Enugu Rangers International FC then had many supporters in those
cities, adding that most of them were Igbo traders and people resident
in the cities.
Dominic Nwobodo, a
former Rangers star player who was widely known by his fans as
‘Alhaji’, recalls that more football fans made it to the stadiums in
those days to cheer their respective clubs.
“The clubs, no
doubt, entertained the fans with good football and outstanding players
became instant celebrities at the end of matches,” Nwobodo said.
No longer the same
The views tend to
reflect the wide public acceptance of football in those days, as people
regularly trooped to stadiums to watch matches. But many say things are
no longer the same.
Nnaemka Okoli, a
student, said the security factor is partly responsible for the seeming
apathy of people toward watching football matches in stadiums nowadays.
“The stadiums are
no longer safe, as the police are not always around to provide
security,” he said adding that “The few policemen at the stadiums are
only interested in watching the matches; they don’t care about the
people’s safety.”
Farouk Ibrahim, 55,
a Rancher Bees FC fan said, “These days, the payment of gate fees does
not guarantee one a seat inside the stadium.”
For Joy Etim, a
supporter of Niger Tornadoes FC, said she stopped going to stadiums
because of the unruly behaviour of some fans who often molest ladies.
For Christopher
Eze, a fan of Enyimba FC, said that the rising crime rate is a problem.
He said due to the wave of kidnapping in Aba, he has stopped going to
the city to watch league matches involving the club.
“Even before Aba
was overrun by kidnappers and other criminal elements, some hoodlums
had converted a section of the city’s stadium into an Indian
hemp-smoking joint. Nobody, including the police, has been able to
dislodge the miscreants.
“This, among other aberrations, has discouraged me from going to the stadium to watch matches,” Eze said.
Organisers losing out
The current apathy
of football fans towards league matches has seriously affected the
fortunes of the organisers because of their scanty proceeds from gate
fees.
It has also
affected local government councils and state gaming commissions that
usually receive part of the entertainment tax levied on proceeds from
the gate fees.
Wahab Osinowo, a
fan of the defunct Stationery Stores of Lagos, recalls in the 1970s and
1980s, football clubs of like Rangers International FC, Vasco Da Gama
FC, IICC Shooting Stars, Spartans FC, Abakaliki White Angels, Niger
Tornadoes FC, Zuma Rocks FC, ACB FC, Rancher Bees FC, Racca Rovers FC,
were crowd pullers.
He added that other
football clubs like Stationary Stores FC, Mighty Jets FC, Bendel
Insurance FC, Sharks FC, Flash Flamingoes FC and Leventis United FC had
appreciable supporters in those days.
“These clubs were
household names, just like some of their star players. We had stars
like Emeka and Ifeanyi Onyedika, Cyril Okosieme, Christian Chukwu,
Ernest Ufele, Sylvanus Okpala, Patrick Ekeji, Aloy and Andrew Atuegbu,
Adokiye Amiesimaka, Muda Lawal, Segun Odegbami, Wole Odegbami and
Ndubuisi Okosieme,” Osinowo said.
Many fans recall that during the period, there were seasoned sports commentators like Ernest Okonkwo,
Sebastian Ofurrum, Walter Batowei, Kelvin Ejiofor and Fabio Lanipekun of NTA.
They also note that
sports reporters like S.B. Oshuntolu of Daily Times, Segun Adenuga of
the Herald Newspapers and Vincent Obi of News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
then added glamour to the football scene via their incisive reports.
Analysts noted that
the multifaceted media activities on the sports scene then were largely
helpful in grooming footballers to become stars, while motivating
football fans to come to stadiums to watch matches.
“That era has now been consigned to the dust bin of history,” said Emeka Odikpo, a sports commentator for Radio Nigeria.
He lamentd that
European leagues — the English Premiership, Spanish Liga, German
Bundesliga and the French League, Italia Series A — have all dealt a
fatal blow on the public acceptability of the local league.
“These are now the
popular fixtures that now dominate the pay TVs and even the terrestrial
networks,” he said, adding that Nigerian companies which ought to be
naturally interested in the survival of the local league, even sponsor
the broadcast of foreign league matches.
He, however,
concedes that the quality of the country’s facilities – pitches,
stadium ambience and high-definition pictures – tend to make the
foreign leagues more attractive to Nigerians.
“It is funny to
note the fan base of foreign clubs in Nigeria have become so huge that
they have formed local affiliates of the teams’ fans clubs and they
even wear replicas of the clubs’ jerseys to Tviewing centres to watch
matches,” Samuel Adekunle, a journalist, said.
Besides, Adekunle
said, rival fans of these foreign often engage themselves in fights
whenever big matches are being played in faraway Europe. He added that
there had been some reported cases of deaths and injuries arising from
such clashes.
Reviving the Nigerian league
However, Chidi
Offor-Okenwa, the Chairman of Enugu State Football Association,
strongly believes that the citizens’ interest in the local league can
be revived.
“Our league stands a good chance of bouncing back. It is even in a position to rekindle the promotion of internal tourism.
“With good
re-packaging, soccer, being one of the greatest sports with many
followers at home and abroad, remains a unifying factor in the country,
cutting across ethnic, religious and cultural divide.
“The league has
commercial value because of its potential to promote merchandising,
advertising and sales, as well as other transactions on goods and
services.
“It also has an
in-built conflict-resolution mechanism, which can be exploited by
communities, and organisations in efforts to adopt the principle of
‘fair play’,” Offor-Okenwa said.
But can Nigerian
stadiums be filled up with spectators watching football matches? Can
anything be done to bring back fans to stadiums? How can the football
administrators rekindle Nigerians’ interest in the league?
To many pundits,
the league has also experienced a major setback because of the
controversies that trailed the election that brought Davidson Owumi in
as the Chairman of the Board of the NFL.
The dust has yet to
settle because the Ethics and Disciplinary Committee of the Nigeria
Football Federation (NFF) ruled that NFL, as presently constituted, is
illegal.
The committee
insists that investors should refrain from dealing with the NFL, as the
electoral committee failed to authenticate the eligibility of
candidates who vied for offices.
Apparently
undaunted the committee’s decision, Owumi appears determined to forge
ahead in changing the fortunes of the NFL, as he has just initiated a
roadmap for the league’s transformation.
On efforts to
repackage the league, Owumi said: “We have approached some events
managers and we challenged them to generate ideas on how to transform
the league and get soccer fans back to the stands.
“As part of our
plans, we intend to explore how we can make fans utilise some of the
infotainment facilities at some of the stadiums used for the FIFA World
Youth Championship in 1999 to encourage fans to come to stadiums by
showing English Premiership matches ahead of our league matches.
“This means the
ticket that brings a fan into a stadium entitles him to watch English
Premiership matches that would be shown live on the stadium’s big
screens.
“We also intend to
use some local musicians, cultural entertainment and raffle draws to
mobilise fans to the stands. These are ideas we are trying to fine-tune
to get the league up and running again,” Owunmi said.
In a recent tour of
the German Bundesliga by five Nigerian journalists, sponsored by
SuperSports, the stadiums of two German football clubs — Kaisaslautern
and Mainz 05 — were filled to capacity, evoking memories of those days
when fans thronged Onikan, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Sharks stadiums to watch
quality league matches.
Segun Fayose, Head
of Communications, MultiChoice, a pay TV which has secured the rights
to show Nigerian league matches on its platform, said that plans are
underway to woo soccer fans back to stadiums.
He noted that the
Bundesliga tour was part of an “understudy trip undertaken to see how
Germans were able to transform their league to become a money-spinner.
“As right holders
to the league, we have a duty not only to fill the stadiums but also to
provide visibility for clubs in the league.
“We are doing that
for the South African League and we are doing it for the NFL. We are
mindful of the huge market which Nigeria has,” Fayose said, adding that
“If we can do it in South Africa, why not here. It is achievable and
don’t forget the fact that if there is a will, there is a way,” he said.
