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Comparable
to any high-octane soap opera, there have been tales of million-pound
spending, a resignation before the opening game, and one frugal
Frenchman signing a contract until 2014. Where else would you have an
Argentine captain in England (the Falklands war more than a distant
memory), the launch of the Tracer T90 and an Italian duo designing
official wear for a Russian-owned enterprise?

These are not sub plots of ‘Dallas’ reruns, it’s the English Premier League back with a bang: and what a start it was.

Manager of the Year
2009/10, Harry Redknapp’s Spurs faced big spending Manchester City in
the first match. An exciting game from start to finish, the only wonder
is how it ended goalless. Perhaps due to City’s Joe Hart and his
goalkeeping display. It earned him the Man of the Match award. Look out
for press on this young man as the English media will expectedly go
into overdrive.

In the meantime,
Arsene Wenger should get the cheque book ready; he can bring in Shay
Given should the Schwarzer deal go awry. The other potential English
keepers suffered a reversal of this to let in nine goals between them.
Three of these were scored by Didier Drogba in what was only the
seventh opening day hat trick in premier league history. Chelsea ended
last season with an 8-0 victory and a Drogba hat trick and have started
this one with 6-0. Ominous times ahead for the other teams? I refer all
Blues to the Hollies’ very apt opening lyrics – ‘the road is long, with
many a winding turn’.

Essien is back

Beware the Red
Devils. Here’s hoping you live up to your nickname, pensioners. It was
great to see Michael Essien back in fine form and one always has an eye
on the African talent in the EPL: the Toure brothers, Mikel, Frimpong,
Chamakh, Mensah, Assou-Ekotto, Abdoulaye Faye and the rest.

We move on to the
other fixtures: favourites to be whipping boys, Blackpool instead gave
Wigan a thorough whipping, topping the embryonic table for two hours.
The beauty of the game is in these stories of the unexpected. Red
cards, several yellows, own goals and a penalty all added to the
talking point for the opening fixtures.

Against Arsenal,
Joe Cole was sent off for a reckless tackle in the first half; a half
that saw much of the usual from the gunners. They had almost 60% of
possession and made countless aimless passes in midfield but never
looked like scoring. Not much has changed in that department, or with
Almunia. He had enough heart stopping moments for their fans to revolt
if a goalie is not signed as a matter of urgency. Liverpool defended
stoutly at Anfield and led until a rare mistake by Reina levelled the
scoreline.

Arsenal have lost
Campbell, Gallas, Slivestre and Senderos and brought in only Laurent
Koscielny. Not enough cover in case of injury.

Last but not the
least; Newcastle United faced a baptism of fire at Old Trafford. Ryan
Giggs and Paul Scholes again showed class despite their increasing age,
inspiring the Red Devils to an opening match win to keep Chelsea on
their toes.

Standouts at home

Despite the
excitement in other lands, there are a couple of standouts at home: the
NFF elections are expected to hold in two days. We look forward to a
Board that will reenergise our football. Will Samson Siasia be the
Super Eagles coach? It’s not going to be an easy job and the clamour
for a Nigerian coach is deafening. Nigerians, you have asked for him.

Don’t turn around and crucify him while we build a Super Eagles for the 21st century.

I had wanted to
talk about the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) elections this week,
given developments in the last one week. I had to shelve it when I read
comments coming from Amos Adamu during the ‘Stakeholders Forum’, which
was held in Abuja last week.

In the comments
credited to him in some national dailies, he was laying the blame of
the rot in Nigerian sports on the influx of non-professionals into the
administration of sports particularly football.

Adamu said among other things that:

“In Nigeria today,
non-professionals have taken over the administration of football,
taking decisions without moving ahead. How do we explain that a
Nigerian coach who qualified the nation for the World Cup was sacked,
while a white man, who did not win a single match, was being praised?

“If we must excel in competitions, we must go back to the drawing board by doing the right thing.

Not until
professionals are put in charge of administration of football, the
problem besieging football in the country would persist. If we must
move ahead, we must place round pegs in round holes.”

He added:

“Nobody can
intimidate me out of sports; it is what I know how to do. Let me also
say that it here that I will take responsibility for my actions and
those of my workers, but the truth is that most of the people talking
have no stake and they don’t know what they are talking about. So, you
can only sympathise with them because they don’t know”.

He went on to take a swipe at sports journalists for promoting mediocrity in the reporting of sports.

Coming from another
individual, it would have made some sense but from someone who occupied
some of the most important positions in Nigerian sports and failed to
contribute to its development, it is downright insulting to Nigerians.

It is interesting
that Adamu says non-professionals have been running football in Nigeria
and have thus been responsible for running it aground. It would have
helped for him to have been specific by mentioning names since he says
he cannot be intimidated by anybody.

Since he has not we
can only assume that he is merely punching air. But to engage him all
the same, let’s cast our minds back to the last election held into the
board of the NFF in 2006; the election that produced the board whose
tenure just ended. Can Amos Adamu tell Nigerians how Sani Lulu got to
become Chairman and later president of the federation or is he claiming
ignorance? Can he come clean and let everyone know how Amanze
Uchegbulam and his shadowy ‘Stakeholders’ were instigated into to
hounding Ibrahim Galadima the then NFA boss out of office?

Nigerians would
like to know the role he played in getting Urs Linsi, then FIFA
Secretary General to supervise the removal of Galadima, who by the way
was championing autonomy of the football federation, a cause he, Adamu
pretends to support.

If his memory is short, that of a good many Nigerians are not.

Even moving from
football, let’s look at Adamu’s accomplishments in office as Director
of Sports Development. If you add up the total number of years he spent
in that office plus the time he spent as Director General of the
National Sports Commission (NSC), we are looking at nothing less than
ten years.

Now, in the scheme
of things that office happens to be the brain box of the sports
establishment in Nigeria. It is there that strategies for developing
sports from the grassroots through the whole gamut of designing
programmes for elite athletes, the national institute of sports and
other ancillary agencies should emanate.

No useful ideas

What was Adamu’s score card before he was kicked out of the sports commission by late President Yar’Adua?

Is Nigerian sports better off because he occupied the strategic office of sports development director? Is it worse off?

The answer is
obvious – Nigeria has gone ten years without an Olympic gold medal; we
have gone eleven years without a single medal at the athletics world
championships; we have repeatedly come up short in a number of
continental and international competitions like the All Africa Games
and the Commonwealth Games.

Again, because
Adamu failed in his job of designing a blueprint for the development of
Nigerian sports, we have become very comfortable with cheating. Without
a tinge of conscience we field thirty-year-olds in competitions meant
for children under 17 years of age.

Today, Nigerian
sports is tottering. We have failed to take advantage of both our
numerical strength and prodigious amount of talent. Adamu failed to
provide the needed direction while he occupied important offices in
Nigeria’s sports establishment.

While Nigerian
sports founders, Adamu’s career has blossomed. At the moment he
occupies important positions in world football. As Chinua Achebe
reminds us in his epic, Things Fall Apart, those whose palm kernel has
been cracked for them by benevolent spirits should not forget to be
humble.

Amos Adamu has come this far because Nigerian sports provided him
the platform, he should think of ways genuine ways of showing gratitude
instead of dismissing critics of his non-performance in office as
ignorant.

The Commissioner of
Sports Development in Bayelsa State, Opukiri Jones – Ere, has stated
that the relegation of the state’s football club, Bayelsa United,
amounts to injustice.

Jones – Ere was
reacting to the ratification of the relegation of Bayelsa United, Wikki
Tourists, Gateway and Ranchers Bees by the congress of the Nigeria
Premier League during the Super Four tournament, which held in
Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State recently.

Bayelsa United
contested the three points awarded to their opponents in an abandoned
match involving them and Wikki Tourists of Bauchi.

Documents made
available to journalists by the commissioner including the match
reports of the referee and the match commissioner, supported Bayelsa
United’s claim that the team was leading by 1-0 when fans of the home
team invaded the pitch and assaulted the centre referee and his
assistants.

In his report
centre referee, John Charles, said the match was abandoned in the 75th
minute when the home team had a free kick awarded in their favour. He
added that he was organizing the defensive wall of Bayelsa United team
when a player of Wikki Tourists cleverly kicked the ball inside the net.

The referee said he
ordered that the kick be re-taken and was about to hand the Wikki
player a yellow card when Wikki fans invaded the pitch and descended on
him and his assistants.

Charles stated that
he, alongside the other officials, was saved by the policemen who shot
teargas to disperse the unruly crowd who however regrouped later with
the Chairman of the home team leading them to their hotels later in the
evening.

“The game was
abandoned in the 75th minute because I awarded a free kick to the home
team and I instructed the Wikki player to wait for my instructions
while I measured the ten requisite yards to the away team. The player
did not wait for the whistle but instead deceitfully kicked the ball
into the opponents net,” Charles stated in the report.

“As I was going to
caution the player with a yellow card, some players numbering about
five rushed at me to protest my decision, then the supporters and thugs
of the home team encroached on the field of play and pounced on me and
the other officials” the report added.

The match
commissioner’s report corroborated the referees’ report but added that
the officials had sneaked to Jos later in the night to avoid graver
repercussions.

“How can they do
this when Nigeria Football is at the moment at a cross road and
Nigerians from all walks of life are agreed that the country’s football
should be sanitized?” Jones-Ere asked.

‘Bayelsa should accept their fate’

Usman Shehu, Wikki
Tourists Media officer who spoke on phone from Bauchi says the
allegations by Bayelsa United are untrue. He said the club’s officials
have distorted events in order to attract sympathy.

“It is not true
that any league official has favoured us. The information Bayelsa
United people are pushing around is misleading and does not correctly
reflect what really happened,” Shehu said.

The Wikki Media
officer said that Bayelsa applied to NPL that the match scheduled for
Saturday in Bauchi be shifted to Sunday whereupon NPL responded that
they should take up the matter with Wikki where they would find the
request agreeable.

“We told them that
it wasn’t possible to shift the match to Sunday as arrangements had
been concluded to have the match played on Saturday. They did not show
up for the match and so we walked them over with three points awarded
to us,” Usman said.

Usman said that
Bayelsa somehow managed to get the NPL to order a replay. He said that
on that day Bayelsa was leading 1-0 when Wikki equalised in the 75th
minute.

“After we scored,
Bayelsa players protested the goal and prevented the match from
continuing. We thought that following the rules we should have been
awarded the match but the NPL again ordered a replay, this time for
Abuja. We were in Abuja three days before the match and on the day of
the match, Bayelsa did not show up. The NPL had no choice that to award
the match to us. The league has ended and the decision has been taken
to relegate team. Wikki was also relegated and we have spent a longer
time in the league than them. Bayelsa should accept their fate. You
cannot win all the time,” Usman said.

The choice of
Arsenal football club manager Arsène Wenger as the President of the
Paris 2011 Homeless World Cup Local Organising Committee has been
applauded by Nigeria’s representative body at the annual football event.

Yomi Kuku,
Executive Director of Search and Groom – youth for development centre,
official selectors of Nigeria’s National street soccer team to the
Homeless World Cup, has sent a letter of congratulation to Homeless
World Cup President, Mel Young on the choice of Wenger.

In the e-mail message to Mel Young, Kuku said:

“This is a result
of the profound commitment by you, the HWC team in Edinburgh, the
Homeless World Cup movement and its global individual and commercial
partners as a whole, the enthusiasm and beliefs that we all share,
bringing hope to humanity that it is a world of possibilities, if we
all strive collectively to make it habitable.

“We are most happy
with the choice of Arsene Wenger, the legend, from the Gunners’ empire
and the support from football greats such as Lillian Thuram and
Emmanuel Petit.

“We at Search and
Groom (Board and Management) share in this joy with our friends and
colleagues in Paris, still one year away from bringing us to the Eiffel
Tower, working so hard and bringing the positive signs to our
doorsteps”

Wenger’s belief

Wenger joins former
professional footballers; Emmanuel Petit and Lilian Thuram, as special
supporters of the Paris 2011 Homeless World Cup.

While accepting this new role, Wenger promised to put in his best into the tournament and spoke on the goals of the tournament.

“The Paris 2011
Homeless World Cup will bring together different national teams made up
of homeless players, organised by charities who help the homeless all
year round. What is important for a guy who is homeless is to give him
a target again in life, for him to know that when he gets up he has
training. He takes a shower, has lunch and knows that he has training
again the next morning,” he said.

The tournament has
also provided an opportunity for young footballers. Early this month,
English club Manchester United paid £7.4m to sign Portuguese player
Bebe, who was raised in an orphanage after spending part of his
childhood on the streets and has represented Portugal in the Homeless
World Cup.

Beating homelessness through football

The Homeless World
Cup is an annual world class, international football tournament
inspiring 64 national grass roots football projects and over 30,000
homeless players a year to change their lives: over 70 per cent change
for the better.

The 8th edition of
the tournament comes up in Rio 2010 from September 19-26, 2010 at
Copacabana Beach, Rio, Brazil before the baton is handed to the Paris
2011 Homeless World Cup holding from August 19 – 29.

The Homeless World
Cup is supported by Nike, United Nations, UEFA, Eric Cantona and
international footballers Rio Ferdinand and Didier Drogba.

Nigerians love and
know their football and are also a proud stock. We are proud of our
population – ‘150 million strong,’ we like to boast – but there seems
to be another breed of Nigerians who do not care about pride – our
footballers.

Firstly, Nigerian
players all over the world will play for any football side as long as
it is outside the shores of their country. We have had players going to
Vietnam to play professionally and unfortunately they died there. The
circumstance of returning the corpse for burial actually showed that
the trip was not worth the sacrifice.

Moving just for the money

In the current
transfer season, many have been left dumb-founded by transfer logic our
players are exhibiting – the phenomenon did not just start now. The
question on the lips of many football enthusiasts is, can our players
not play for the biggest football clubs in the world? The answer may
well be no and it is not because they are necessarily lacking in
quality.

Osaze Odemwingie,
Nigeria’s best player for 2010, formerly of Lokomotiv Moscow has just
transferred his services to West Bromwich Albion (WBA), a team that
just got promoted to the Premiership, and who were hammered by Chelsea,
6-0, in the opening weekend of the Premiership. Odemwingie has had to
take a pay cut to realise this move. But why is he paying this premium
to appear in England for a lowly club?

Odemwingie told the
BBC: “These are the opportunities you hope for when you decide to
become a footballer. This is the next chapter of my career.” Playing
for a third rate club with a dimmer chance of not being relegated than
an ice-cube melting in the open?

No other choice

Odemwingie, must
feel that time is no longer on his side, having turned 29 with no big
club offer on his doorsteps. So what makes an Obafemi Martins leave
Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga to join Rubin Kazan in Russia?

Former Super Eagles
player Garba Lawal said that it is never going to be easy for Nigerian
players to make it to the very big clubs because “we are not good
enough”.

“Even when I was
playing in Europe and Nigeria was on everyone’s lips, it was very hard
to move to those really big clubs. The Real Madrids of this world have
extensive scouting systems and if you are not in the top five of your
position then most likely, you will never get an offer. If we have
players in that top echelon, then sooner or later, they will play for
these top clubs but right now can you point to any Nigerian player that
is in the top five in his position? We can hardly get into the top 10
not to say top five.

“Another minus is
the fact that Nigeria has not performed well in the big competitions
for some time, while other African countries are doing well so the
focus is on this other countries,” Lawal said.

There are also fears that the present bunch of ‘big players’ have done nothing to help the coming generation.

Ajibade Babalade, who also played for the Super Eagles disagrees with Lawal.

“The problem that
we are having now did not start today. When we were up there we did not
do things that would have sustained us there. Simply put, we do not
have quality players coming through and it is everyone’s fault.

Are our players moving for the dollar or in the hope of bettering their careers?

Martins has said he
needed to recreate a very promising career that has gone off the track
and the move to Russia was basically a career move.

“I have to thank
the fans of Wolfsburg, my former colleagues there and wish the club all
the best for the future. I am joining a team of champions and I hope to
bring my best to the club to make them even greater.” Joseph Yobo,
Super Eagles assistant captain to South Africa 2010 is also rumoured to
be moving to Scotland on a one-year loan after being frozen out of the
Everton team.

“A number of clubs
have indicated their interest in having him, and Everton have no
objection. But the firm interest has come from Scotland and discussions
are taking place,” A sports news website reported recently.

Christian Chukwu,
a former captain, and coach of the Eagles wants everyone that has
anything to do with Nigerian football to take the current situation as
a slight that must be remedied.

“We have some of
the best players in the world, we hear it everywhere but we have not
lived up to these expectation except during the 1996 Olympics when we
won football gold. From the top to the bottom, we must start doing the
things we were doing before – getting back to the schools, if we do it
properly, ten years from now, it will be another story.”

Imagine Lionel Messi playing football
with his eyes closed or Jay-Jay Okocha making his wonderful moves while
blindfolded; that excitement is what obtains in Blind Football; a game
which is gradually getting its roots in Nigeria.

Though the country is yet make it to
the zenith of the game whose World Cup finals comes up later today in
Hereford, England, the brain behind the game in the Nigeria – Yinka
Gbadamosi – is optimistic that the country’s team, the Light Eagles
will make it to the 2012 edition.

“We are making progress every day (and)
by 2012, we should be able to make our first appearance at the World
Cup even though we might not be able to make much impact,” he said.

Gbadamosi, who lost his sight as a
young boy says his dream and passion is to see blind use their other
senses to make a living, with sports being one of the platforms to
achieve that aim.

“Losing one’s sight is not supposed to
be the end to the world. You can still do a lot with the other senses
God has given you. I use to be a goalkeeper before losing my sight but
it did not end there even after going blind,” he said.

The Blind game

Whereas mainstream
football around the world is played amidst a colourful and noisy
backdrop, the silence in the blind version of the game is somewhat
striking.

Etiquette dictates
that spectators remain quiet unless the ball goes out of play because
players need to be able to hear each other and more crucially, the
ball. The ball contains ball bearings, which means its motion makes a
gentle rattling noise that helps players to locate it.

Expectedly, the style of play is different too.

Passes cover a
shorter distance and as players try not to let the ball stray more than
a few inches from their feet, making nimble footwork and a command of
the ball vital.

Mesmeric footwork,
accurate passing and the ever-present rattling of the ball gives the
game a hypnotic quality that makes it easy to forget that the players
can’t see what they’re kicking.

There are
occasional reminders – perhaps a misplaced pass allows the ball to roll
away, or the action stops and the spectator’s gaze lifts from the
players’ feet to the unfamiliar sight of footballers wearing eye
patches.

Development in Nigeria

According to
Gbadamosi there just two teams here in Nigeria for now, they are AF
Rovers, which is run by the wife of Lagos State governor Abimbola
Fasola and Ituah Babes which is owned by Ituah Ighodalo, a Pastor.

“We hope to have
more teams come on board very soon as more people are beginning to
appreciate what we are doing,” Gbadamosi said.

Blind football was
first exhibited in Nigeria on May 2, 2008 and a little over two years
later, the game is gradually getting some attention.

Gbadamosi however
said that it has not been too rosy getting along as his organisation
has been plagued with financial challenges and some administrative
bottle necks.

“We are currently
affiliated with the Lagos State Football Association; they actually
registered us for free but we have not been able to secure registration
with the Corporate Affairs Commission and the National Sports
Commission,” he said.

While believing
that these hurdles will soon be crossed, Gbadomsi also called for
support from well meaning Nigerians, corporate bodies and more
importantly the government.

Of the Ten teams scheduled to participate in this year’s Blind World Cup, Cameroun is the only country from Africa.

As an opening day fixture, it was just
an easy 3-0 win over Newcastle at Old Trafford but against Fulham
today, the old guard of Paul Scholes, who won player of the game last
weekend will be pulling the strings once again and has to be at his
best.

There may also be another cameo
appearance by age-less Ryan Giggs. The Welshman is in the history books
having scored in 19 consecutive Premier League seasons.

At home, Fulham are not normally easy
prospects for any team but against a vigorous United attack of Dimitar
Berbatov and Wayne Rooney, the Brade Haageland led defence may be in
for a tough day.

Fulham beat United 3-0 in last season’s
fixture, and new gaffer and former Manchester United player, Mark
Hughes, will be praying for more of that same score line. In their
opening match at the Reebok Stadium, Fulham recorded a draw and will
want to better that.

United on their part definitely have
other ideas considering the fact that they were comprehensively beaten
in December due to a raft of defensive injuries.

Close to a month after he replaced Roy
Hodgson, who took the team to the finals of the Europa Cup, Hughes is
still trying to mould Fulham to his liking and a match against the
former champions may have come too early in the season.

Striker concerns

There have been fears concerning Rooney’s form and Berbatov’s lack of goals but Alex Ferguson is not worried.

“Strikers live by
their goals. It is quite straightforward. When they are not scoring
they think they will never come. When they come they think they are
never going to finish. He is no different to any other striker,”
Ferguson said about Rooney.

Asked about
Berbatov he said, “Dimitar had the game time he needed in America
during pre-season, so his fitness is assured. There was no problem with
that and he was excellent on Monday. He could have scored three or four
goals in what was a very good performance.”

Rooney has not
scored in 13 games for both club and country although he did score
twice when United beat Fulham at Old Trafford in March.

The chance to make it three home wins against United in consecutive years will be a huge incentive for the Cottagers.

Two seasons ago,
Paul Scholes and Rooney were both sent off and Ferguson knows there
must be an improvement on this visit. “We have had a topsy-turvy time
on the last two occasions we have been to Fulham,” he admitted.

“We had nine men two years ago and last season we had gone just too
far with the injuries. It was a fragile team, with players playing out
of position and the regular defenders all missing. In that situation,
when you lose a goal it becomes very difficult, which is exactly what
happened. United have Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves injured
presently but Ferdinand is due back in five weeks.