Nigeria Content Online

FIFA
vice-president Reynald Temarii welcomes a “full and thorough
investigation” into newspaper claims he offered to sell his vote in the
contest to host the 2018 World Cup.

The Sunday Times
said Oceania Football Confederation president Temarii and Nigeria’s
Amos Adamu – both members of world football governing body FIFA’s
executive committee – had offered to sell their votes when approached
by reporters posing as lobbyists for an American consortium.

The newspaper
report said Adamu was filmed asking for £500,000 (N125,000,000) for a
personal project and that Tahitian Temarii asked an undercover reporter
in Auckland £1.42m (N355,000,000) to fund a sports academy at the OFC’s
headquarters.

Ready for investigation

“Further to
information made public by The Sunday Times, the OFC president and FIFA
vice president Reynald Temarii will cooperate fully with the FIFA
Ethics Committee and the FIFA secretary general,” a statement from the
OFC said.

“Reynald Temarii welcomes a full and thorough investigation so that all the facts can be heard.”

The OFC said it would not comment further until the findings of the FIFA Ethics Committee have been released.

FIFA will decide on
December 2 in Zurich which countries will host the 2018 and 2022 World
Cups. The choices will be made by the 24-strong executive committee.

However a source
close to the executive, who asked not to be named, said both Adamu and
Temarii could find themselves suspended or off the committee by then if
the claims against them were substantiated.

“FIFA will not
allow anyone or anything to damage the reputation of the voting
procedure and it could be that 22 men might make the decision, not 24,”
the source said.

England and Russia are bidding for the 2018 finals along with joint bids from Spain/Portugal and Belgium/Netherlands.

The candidates for 2022 are the United States, Japan, South Korea, Qatar and Australia.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter appealed to his executive committee members to stay silent as he launched an investigation.

“I am sorry to have
to inform you of a very unpleasant situation which has developed in
relation to an article published … in the Sunday Times, entitled
‘World Cup votes for sale’,” Blatter wrote in an open letter.

“I will keep you duly informed of any further developments.

“In the meantime, I would like to ask you to refrain from making any public comments on this matter.”

The
Chief Executive Officer of Rangers International FC, Ozor Paul
Chibuzor, has said that his team, which ended last season in fifth
position, has been re-positioned to make a bold statement this term
when the new season kicks off on Saturday.

In an exclusive
interview, the soft spoken club administrator said his team was fully
prepared for the new season with the retention of about 75% of players
that featured for the Enugu-based ‘Flying Antelopes’ last season.

“I must tell you
that Rangers is very much ready to reclaim all its lost glory this
coming season. We have learnt our lessons from last season which to
some extent, have to be celebrated because, for a long while, Rangers
have not had the opportunity of playing teams from outside our shores
and with our fifth place finish, our fans can enjoy some sort of
international football with qualification for next season’s WAFU cup,”
Chibuzor said. “I can tell you that as I talk, only two players are yet
to sign the contract papers with us and it is because they are in the
senior national team. So, we are ready to give Enyimba of Aba a run for
the trophy they won last season.”

The roster is already full

On reports making
the rounds that players were not willing to sign for the club and that
he was not in the good books of the clubs’ sole financier, Chibuzor
said, “There is no iota of truth in that as I can conveniently tell you
that 98% of players that we need for the new season have all signed for
us and for all the noise that the clubs’ supporters want me out, I term
that the work of the clubs’ detractors that are operating within the
club. But, for some few selfish individuals that are self-seeking, we
are an organized group that has one goal of leading Rangers to the
promise land this season.

“For the new
season, we can boast of a very dedicated set of players that are
willing to spill their blood for the club. With the likes of Francis
Okammor, Uche Oguchi, Uche Ugochukwu, James Okwosah, John Aguda and a
host of other new players working with the retained players, I don’t
have any doubt that we will come out tops in the coming season. On the
players and coaches entitlements, he said: “I have had fruitful talks
with the state SSG and before the start of the new season, and the
backlog of dues owed will be settled with some remuneration for the new
season also been offset.

“Also, the
technical crew led by Alphonsus Dike, that has done marvellously well
will continue the good work of leading Rangers to the glory land,” said
the former U.S based club administrator.

Rangers will play their first match of the season at home against
Lobi Stars of Makurdi on Sunday at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium. Kickoff
is scheduled for 4pm, local time.

Since
there is a time for everything, I crave the permission of regular
readers to react to comments posted via the Internet, by readers.

On October 9, 2010,
the following – very instructive, comments were posted apparently, as
reactions to the column of Tuesday, October 5, 2010.

Busman commented as
follows… “If your goal is to save Nigeria Sports please don’t place
your focus on winning the football World Cup. Over emphasis on winning
the most contested prize in sport will dilute the ability to excel in
so many other sports which are currently almost completely ignored in
this country. First we need grassroots sporting competitions in Primary
schools, in a wide range of sports. Follow it up with the secondary
schools once the talent is spotted. Pick a sport (not football) and
arrange for every Local Government in Lagos to have teams in three age
groups that are coached and compete every week. Let’s focus on getting
some athletes, tennis players, swimmers, rugby or basketball players,
back to the TOP of the world.”

Noway, posted the
following: “Please, I beg. Forget this entire God will save us
nonsense. It is another way of making an excuse for not working hard to
make things happen. Do for self. If you believe in God and you get
something done then maybe He will be happy. He sure as hell ain’t going
to do it for you.”

The last comment,
came from the Nigerian Tennis Ambassador – Sadiq Abdullahi, thus… “I
have followed your analysis, thinking and rationale on sports
development particularly grassroots development in your column for
several months. SANSI when fully launched and operational has the
potential to make an impact and play a significant role in rebuilding
our grassroots sports infrastructures. There is the need to mobilise
all interested current and ex-national and international players in all
sports including ex-Olympians to a summit on sports development in
Nigeria, similar to the one you had recently in Lagos. The sports
summit will accomplish clearly defined objectives, one of which is to
conceptualise and design a blueprint for moving forward.”

My reactions to the comments

First, I have come
to appreciate and respect what is known as the 60% rule, or factor, in
communications. This applies to all forms of communication being passed
to others, either via the print or electronic medium. What it means is
that a maximum of only 60% of your messages are well understood, or
ever gets to the reader or listener. The remaining 40% is swallowed up,
as it were, by socio-economic, political, religious, marital and
several other problems, especially in a country like Nigeria, where the
thoughts of survival and security aggressively compete for attention on
daily basis. In this sort of clime, there is the need, not only to
inform, but to over inform, so that the likes of Noway – the second
commentator above, may eventually understand what we are saying,
appreciate the philosophy driving SANSI, catch the vision and hopefully
run with it.

Second, I humbly
appeal to Busman – the first commentator above, to please check the
column of Tuesday 5th October 2010, properly. We did not in any way
suggest that focus will be on winning the FIFA World cup trophy in
2018. What we said in the column is and I quote “one of the projects of
SANSI is ensuring that this great nation wins … in 2018”.

Truth is we prefer
to operate like the charcoal fire and not like the wild bushfire. We
have been working and networking with a couple of people inside and
outside this great nation for almost eight years, on the issue of
reviving Nigerian sports. These people include very experienced
administrators, managers, coaches, sports scientists, marketers – you
name it. We have come across some “energisers” and “energy
sappers/dream snatchers” along the line. Some of our ideas have been
plagiarised. We have had to, just like Abdullahi commented very
appropriately, contend with some individuals with hidden agendas and
mighty egos.

But we are unperturbed. We are determined, focused and trusting God
for divine guidance. We believe in Abraham Lincoln’s statement, which
is “give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first
four hours sharpening the axe.” A major distraction occurred while
writing this piece. I received a text message on the bribery scandal
involving our own Amos Adamu. I quickly responded that the sender
should please remember that this is October and not April, and I will
therefore refuse to be fooled. Amos Adamu in a N125million bribery
scandal? No way. Any right thinking Nigerian should know that Adamu is
worth billions of dollars. How then could such a person, popularly
known as “Mr Fix-it” fall for such peanuts? Whether it is a very
serious allegation or not, is not important now. The issue is whether
Adamu will be able to “fix” this busy body England’s Sunday Times
undercover reporter’s story or not. Time will tell.

Cowrie
RFC on Sunday emerged winners of the Lagos Rugby Union League and
etched their name in the record books by becoming the first side to
finish the season unbeaten.

The air was thick
with anticipation on Sunday at the main bowl of the National Stadium,
Lagos as fans of the sport waited to see how Cowrie would end the third
edition of the Lagos Rugby Union League organised by the Friends of
Rugby (FOR). This was because Cowrie went into the match at the summit
of the league table with an unbeaten run. And their opposition in their
final game was second-placed Addax RFC.

Cowrie, however,
cruised to victory, deafeating Addax 15-0 to maintain their unbeaten
streak, and successfully defending their title for the second year
consecutively. They accumulating 56 points, 21 points ahead of Addax,
who finished the season with 35 points.

In other matches
decided earlier on Sunday, Young Lions, inspired by their coach-player
Ntiense Williams, who is also the coordinator of the league, defeated
fifth-placed Gosar 12-0. The victory took their points tally to 11 but
it wasn’t enough to lift them out of the sixth position. Lagos RFC lost
8-5 to Police Machine but retained third spot on the table with 29
points, a spot above the Police team who ended the campaign with 18
points.

Something for everyone

For their efforts,
Cowrie got a cash award of N250,000, in addition to N50,000 for
emerging as the league’s most disciplined side, while second place
Addax got N100,000 and an additional N25,000 after they were adjudged
as the most improved team of the season.

The Cowrie duo of
Jojo Jafar and Azeez Ladipo respectively emerged as highest tries and
points scorer and were each given a cash prize of N25,000. Samson
Yahaya also emerged as the season’s MVP and was rewarded with a cash
prize of N30,000.

The Rugby League
final had a capacity crowd of over 2,000 spectators and players with a
full support of over 250 workers & friends of CMB Buildings &
Maintenance Investment Company Limited, which is owned by Kelechi
Mbagwu, chairman FOR.

With the National
Sports Festival scheduled to take place sometime next year, no kick off
date has been fixed for the next season.

“This is because of the National Sport Festival,” Williams said. “We
do not want our programmes to affect that of the National programme. We
are also hoping to accommodate more clubs. For now we have told the
interested club to go and register their interest and our board would
look into it.”

The
board of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF, will hold an
extra-ordinary board meeting on Thursday, October 21, from 10.00 am at
the federation Secretariat at the Park-B section of the Abuja National
Stadium.

The meeting is
expected to amongst other things discuss the issue of the age scandal
that rocked the Nigerian team to the just concluded Afro-basket
tournament in Kigali, Rwanda.

A Nigerian player,
Godfrey, Moses was sanctioned over allegations of age falsification
which in turn caused the country’s junior basket ball team, the Junior
Tigers a shot at one of the available tickets to next year’s World
Championships in Latvia.

According to a
press release from the federation’s media officer, Segun Ikuesan, the
meeting will also try to chart a new course for the game in Nigeria.

“The meeting will
discuss the state of the game in our land and proffer solutions on how
best to continue to raise the stake of the game in Nigeria,” it read.

To chair the
Extra-ordinary board meeting is the President of the Federation and 3rd
Vice-President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Tijjani Umar.

Going all the way

On the age scandal,
Umar said the federation will go all the way to uncover whosoever was
behind the incident and also bring such people to book.

“We are not taking
basketball as a do or die affair and we will never be involved in any
incidence of cheating, but whoever is behind this will be uncovered and
punished. The coaches would also be queried when the team return from
Rwanda.

“We are also going
to take a step to involve the National Sports Commission in the whole
thing because a time has come for everyone involved in sports to do
things the right way,” he said.

Before Thursday’s Extra-ordinary board meeting there will be a meeting of the League Board on Wednesday also in Abuja.

The League Board
will give their report of the last DStv Premier League season which was
won by Kano Pillars and will ratify that date for the commencement of
the 2010/11 season.

The League Board Meeting will be chaired by Adamu Khaleh, who is also the Head of the federation Technical Committee.

Liverpool’s
new American era began in failure on Sunday in front of their latest
owners with a 2-0 loss to Merseyside rivals Everton which sent them
second from bottom of the Premier League.

John W Henry and
Tom Werner were at Goodison Park to see Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta
score in the 34th and 50th minutes, condemning the five times European
champions to their fourth defeat from eight games this season.

Fernando Torres
went closest for the visitors when his first-half header was turned
over the bar by Everton keeper Tim Howard but Liverpool offered little
else in another poor display.

They slipped one place in the table on goal difference,

level on six points with Wolverhampton Wanderers and bottom-placed West Ham United.

Henry’s New England
Sports Ventures, owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, completed
a takeover of the Premier League club on Friday after contentious legal
battles with the previous U.S. owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The jubilant scenes
in London on Friday concluded one of the most dramatic weeks in the
118-year history of Liverpool, one of England’s most famous and
successful clubs.

Fans welcomed Henry
and NESV after becoming increasingly outraged at Hicks and Gillett’s
stewardship and fearful the club was weighed down by unsustainable debt.

Yet the euphoria of the takeover battle did not carry over to the pitch.

Hodgson under pressure

Everton supporters
taunted their counterparts with chants of “Going down”, and the defeat
will focus attention on the future of Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson
under a new regime.

The home side
pressed from the kickoff and went close twice in almost identical
fashion in the first quarter of an hour. Defender Phil Jagielka fired a
left-foot shot over the bar after 12 minutes and two minutes later his
defensive partner Sylvain Distin missed the target from a similar
position inside the area.

Liverpool came to
life after 23 minutes when Joe Cole turned inside and delivered a cross
for Torres, but the Spaniard had his back to goal and his flick-header
was turned over by Tim Howard in Everton’s goal.

The breakthrough came from a determined run down the right by Everton’s right-back, Seamus Coleman.

The Irishman surged
into the area, committing defenders, and after his cross took a slight
deflection off Paul Konchesky, the ball sat up for an onrushing Cahill,
and the Australian drilled his finish high into Jose Reina’s net.

Within five minutes of the start of the second half, Everton doubled their lead.

Liverpool failed to deal adequately with a set piece,

Sotiros Kyrgiakos’s
clearance falling to an unmarked Arteta, whose right-foot shot from the
edge of the area swerved viciously and left Reina clutching at air.

Liverpool raised themselves late on, but it was more in hope than expectation.

Steven Gerrard
delivered an inviting cross for Torres at the back post, but it was
nicked away by a defender at the last moment, and four minutes later
Howard was alert to deny Torres’s right-foot shot inside the area.

Everton, who began the day fourth from bottom, moved up six places to 11th.

Samuel
Eto’o scored another cracking goal to give Inter Milan a 1-0 win at
Cagliari on Sunday and hit back at the racist chanters who had earlier
held up the game.

The victory sent
champions Inter level on points at the top with AC Milan, who beat
Chievo on Saturday, but Lazio can claim first place outright with a win
at Bari later (1845 GMT).

Cameroon forward
Eto’o took his Serie A tally to six goals from seven games this term
and like most of his recent efforts, the 39th minute goal was a
marvellous strike.

Wesley Sneijder
hooked on and Eto’o twisted and turned like Inter’s serpent symbol on
their new away kit before planting a left-foot shot in the corner from
the edge of the box.

The absence of the
injured Diego Milito meant Eto’o could take centre stage in attack and
he looks a different player to the workhorse who toiled during last
term’s treble triumph.

His strike was the
perfect riposte to the Cagliari fans whose racist chants towards him
caused the referee to suspend the game after three minutes of play.

A public
announcement was made asking fans to stop the chants, which they did
for the rest of the match. The game restarted after around three
minutes.

Zanetti returns

The Italian soccer
federation, which has long struggled with racist fans, gave referees
the right to suspend games in case of such chanting after Mario
Balotelli was constantly abused in Inter’s match at Juventus two
seasons ago.

The game had
already caused controversy after becoming the first high-profile match
to be selected for this term’s new 1230 local time kick off, which is
aimed at catching Asian audiences but has angered Italian fans who
believe the start is too early.

The previous 1230
games have been lacklustre, partly because of the heat, but cooling
temperatures in Sardinia and two committed sides led to an engaging
encounter.

Eto’o had another
decent effort and Maicon headed wide on the stroke of halftime but the
hosts also went close when they hit the bar and Julio Cesar was forced
into a good double save.

Cagliari also had two penalty appeals for handball rejected.

As well as Milito,
Inter were without injury victims Goran Pandev and Esteban Cambiasso
with youngsters Coutinho and Jonathan Biabiany again forced to start on
the wings.

Substitute Thiago
Motta made his first appearance this term after knee surgery but looked
uncomfortable and may be doubtful for Wednesday’s Champions League
match with Tottenham Hotspur.

Javier Zanetti also returned after three weeks out.

“I’m happy, I was keen to return,” captain Zanetti told Sky.
“Cagliari put us under pressure but we deserved the lead. Eto’o is
enjoying a great moment and we hope he continues like this.”

There
will be no additional locations to serve as Champions Planet viewing
centres, the Marketing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Jacco Van
der Linden has said.

Van der Linden was responding to questions about the fate of consumers, who were itching to have a feel of the Heineken house.

With UEFA Champions
League matches resuming on Tuesday, Linden explained that the existing
Champions Planet, in Victoria Island, Lagos remains the only one
designed to serve the nation.

Recently, there had
been clamour for the Heineken brand to activate the same concept in
other locations in Lagos and other cities in the country.

However, Linden
said that the concept of the project is synonymous with the planetary
world with all the galaxies having a role to play.

“There can only be
one planet and to narrow it down to the UEFA Champions League, the only
planet that exists in Nigeria is the ‘Heineken Planet House’ which is
unique among all other viewing centres. The only change every season is
the number because we started from Planet one but this season we are in
the fifth edition.

“We quite
appreciate our avowed consumers nationwide who want to have a feel of
the project but the concept of a planet must be in one location and
this is the only reason why we cannot have more than one centre,” he
said.

Attractions

Aside the football
matches, Linden said other activities for guests at the new look Planet
House include table soccer, swimming, golf and chess while all the
games are aired on all the screens available in the Champions Planet.

For the past four
seasons, hundreds of Nigerian football fans have been opportuned to
watch and experience the UEFA Champions league at the Planet.

Top matches
available this Tuesday include the clash between English Premiership
champions, Chelsea and Sparta Moskva at the Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow.
Also, Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid will take on AC at the Santiago
Bernabeu; while Arsenal will host Shakhtar Donetsk at the Emirates
stadium.

The following day, defending champions Inter Milan will host
Tottenham Hotspurs at the San Siro Stadium while Camp Nou will stage
the FC Barcelona FC versus Kobenhavn tie. Manchester United will host
Turkish entrants, Bursaspor at Old Trafford to conclude the schedule
for day 3 of the 2010/11 UEFA Champions League.

With
only 10 editions gone, sports flight, a new sports programme aired on
City FM 105.1, is making waves in Lagos among sports enthusiasts for
its breezy style of delivery.

The programme has
seen the return of one of the best radio sports voices in Nigeria,
Ralph Chidozie George, after a five year absence when he sojourned to
the South East to be manager sports, Cosmo FM in Enugu.

Sports Flight is a
15 minute programme which has four segments namely, the Home-front,
Africa scene, Elsewhere in the world and a sports song.

The innovation of a selected sports song daily to round off the show is fast catching on with listeners around the city.

It has also been an
educative platform and in the few editions, they have had the voices of
football players that include Hoffenheim striker, Chinedu Obasi,
Denmark-based Peter Utaka, Bury’s Efetobore Sodje,

Vincent Enyeama,
Djurgarden’s Ikpe Ekong, Apam Onyekachi – who plays for Rennes in
France, and Babajide Ogunbiyi – who plays for Viborg in Denmark. They
have also had a boxing world title hopeful, Segun Ajose, a former
wrestling tag team champion, Barbarian, and a host of others on the
programme.

The programme is
also not lacking in reports, as Sammy Wejinya reports from Port
Harcourt and the Commonwealth Games reports were on daily until it
concluded last week. The sports programmes is produced by Diamond
Trophy International, a production outfit based in Lagos and Enugu.

“I had to return to
Lagos after being away in Enugu for six years working for COSMO FM and
presenting the flagship sports programme, Sportstrack,” George said.

“Sports Flight is
an innovative programme away from the ordinary sports programmes on the
air waves; it serves more exclusive local content and celebrates the
Nigeria Premier League while not forgetting to serve action from the
foreign scene.

“We have a repertoire of sports songs from football to wrestling,
boxing, basketball and even workout songs and daily we choose one to
end the show” he said. Sports Flight is aired from Monday to Friday at
8am on City FM, 105.1.

With
just five weeks to the much anticipated sixth edition of the Obudu
International Mountain Race and the second African mountain running
championships for both men and women, more top athletes around the
world have confirmed their readiness to be at the big athletics event.

The growing list of athletes already confirmed for the event includes reigning world champion, Andrea Mayr of Austria.

Mayr, who has
remained unbeaten in the World Mountain Running Association grand prix
series and won the world title last month, will be staging a comeback
to reclaim the title she was unable to defend last year due to a
bicycle accident few weeks before the event.

Others who have
also stated their readiness to stake a claim for the $50,000
(N7,500,000) top prize for men and women race winners respectively
include Turkey’s Ahmet Arslan, the reigning European mountain running
champion , the Kenyan trio of Emily Chepkemoi Samoei ,Pamela Chepkemoi
Pertom and Irene Cherop Loritareng who have all been impressive in the
2010 season. Also in for the International Mountain race is women’s
former champion, Rehima Kedir of Ethiopia.

Unprecedented entries

Patrick Ugbe, the
media chief for the race told the journalists over the weekend that
this year’s race has witnessed an unprecedented number of athletes who
want to come down to Nigeria to participate.

“This is very
pleasing to us because of the many negative reports in the
international media about how unsafe Nigeria is. We have been able to
consistently let the whole world know how safe Nigeria is with the
perfect organisation of the race,” Ugbe said.

“This will be the
sixth edition of the race and we have not received any negative report
about it. Instead we have had more Europeans, Asians and South
Americans making enquiries about the race than ever. Even the president
of the world mountain running association, Bruno Gozzelino has revealed
that the Obudu Ranch Resort, venue for the annual race can conveniently
host the world championships.”

Ugbe said the
executive Governor of Cross River, Liyel Imoke, has been the driving
force behind the good image the race is giving Nigeria as a country and
Cross River as a state.

The Obudu Mountain
Resort is one of the finest tourist destinations in the world. Deep in
the tropical rain forest of Cross River.

The resort which is located on the Obudu Plateau at an altitude of
1,576 metres above Sea level is equipped with modern facilities like an
International Hotel, and airstrip, a Golf Course, nature reserve,
Waterpark and is equipped with a Cable Car and a Canopy Walkway.