Preparations are reaching a feverish pace for elections into the coveted office of the Nigerian Football Federation with the states and zones of Nigeria presenting candidates pursuant to the laws that govern our football.
But then, a sport is recreation and is voluntary. It is therefore incongruous for governments to legislate on sport(s) as you play and recreate when, with whom and how you want to. Persons involved in recreation voluntarily organise their recreation whether in the form of games and sports or any other activity upon their leisure and pleasure. Governments and their law making bodies, the legislature have no business proposing, debating and passing laws on how to play or when to play.
In the same way that the constitutions of nations enshrine provisions on freedom of association, we associate with whom we want to, recreate with whom we want to and play with whom we choose. These rules that govern associations freely entered into by their participants or members essentially gave rise to organised sports like association football also known as Soccer.
Outside of the above argument on the intrinsic nature of recreation, sport(s) and games which renders governmental legislation on sports awkward, from the purely legal and constitutional standpoint, our largely borrowed federal constitution contains in its schedule, two legislative lists, an Exclusive List with matters enumerated therein reserved for the National Assembly, and a Concurrent List which contains matters that both the National and State Houses of Assembly may concurrently legislate upon. Sport(s) is not included in either list and is therefore a residual matter, which can only be legislated upon by a state’s house of assembly.
The effect of the foregoing, is that all federal legislations as they impact on sport(s) including the act which creates the National Sports Commission (if there is any) and Decree 101 under which our football in the form of the Nigerian Football Association Act and its illegitimate successor, the Nigerian Football Federation are hinged, are all constitutionally void. The NFF is a bastard (for want of a more appropriate term) because its statutes were “manufactured” by a body without legitimacy. An association created by an unconstitutional legislation that changed its statutes without due process and transmuted into a federation courtesy of “government” represented by Lulu, Ojo-Oba and their godfather, Amos Adamu.
As we proceed to restructure our football, following our less than satisfactory performance in South Africa, the Technical Committee set up for the purpose by President Jonathan must recognise this unique opportunity to do things right. The Committee must understand that the problem is not football but all of our sports and that the cause of the problem is essentially that of a cabal in government that insists on intermeddling with sport(s) for their own personal gain, using the agency of “government” as a vehicle.
Indeed the only reason why “government” insists that they must organise and fund our sports is due to the system of government we have allowed to blossom in Nigeria. Without mincing words, we operate a Kleptocracy, which as defined by Wikipedia is:
“A term applied to a government that takes advantage of governmental corruption to extend the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively kleptocrats), via the embezzlement of state funds at the expense of the wider population, sometimes without even the pretense of honest services………………… The term is a pejorative for governments perceived to have a particular severe and systemic problem with the selfish misappropriation of public funds by those in power”.
An argument is made by this ever-widening circle of persons headed by civil servants, career politicians and their fiendish lackeys to the effect that government is the sole sponsor of sports in Nigeria and therefore should call all the shots through the National Sports Commission (NSC) or Ministry of Sports at both the federal and state levels. The effect is that the NSC, the sports associations and even the National Olympic Committee (NOC) have become money sharing agencies.
Virtually every football club in the Nigerian Premier League is owned by a state government with a state commissioner for sports or civil servant director of sports as chairman. Budgetary allocations are made on an annual basis for running football clubs as a means of siphoning large sums of money, most of which is earmarked for sign-on fees for footballers, who never receive the monies.
Entrepreneurship, passion and love for the game are sacrificed. Spurious legislations are passed defining and delimiting membership of associations to civil servants and other government workers including the Police, Army, Customs and even Civil-Defence and Yellow-Fever. A man like Cosmas Maduka who built Coscharis and who loves and can finance table-tennis can only be a member of the table-tennis association by default as a nominee of government: Segun Odegbami who possibly has invested more in football than anyone else besides the late Nathaniel Idowu and M.K.O Abiola may not even be able to qualify for membership of the NFF because of this diabolical system spurned by greed and avarice. An unreal situation where a serving minister wants to be chairman of the NOC and is involved in a do-or-die battle with a civil servant is created. Meanwhile, the rest of us are excluded by the near impossible cultic rules they have devised for themselves for membership of the NOC and the other sports associations. The result: Nigeria, its sports and youth suffer.
Truth be told, sports is self-financing. Football definitely does not need government. It is an industry the world over fueled by gate-takings, television rights, merchandising, endorsements, branding and intellectual property. To obtain the television rights of the English Premier League in Nigeria only, the asking price is $40,000,000 (=N=6,000,000,000) per annum paid by Nigerians from Nigeria through DSTV to the English Premier League Ltd (a private business not government).
FIFA owns the game and is going to distribute a lot of money to its member associations from time to time. Our local laws and institutions are sufficient to provide a platform for voluntary associations organised under Articles of Association to run all sports. Molade Okoya-Thomas has organised his annual Asoju-Oba table-tennis competition for decades. Every kobo he spends is tax deductible under our tax laws. In effect, he loses absolutely nothing.
Corporate bodies, individuals, voluntary bodies and religious bodies will fall over themselves to organise competitions ranging from football, to cycling, to boxing all designed to develop the youth through sports (not sports development) if only there is accountability.
But then, with “government”, nobody accounts. It’s all fair game. You can steal all you like. What did it cost to host the Under-17 Tourney last year? The answer is blowing in the wind.
For international competitions, the world over, the local NOC’S are funded by the International Olympic Committee to prepare athletes and any short fall can be funded through organised private effort. In the U.S.A it was through Team U.S.A and in Nigeria following the international model, through Team Nigeria, which is a duly incorporated NGO, but which “government” has refused to let loose to fend for itself.
Funding for school sports should be the responsibility of the ministries of education in the federal and state levels through the School Sports Federation, NUGA and others. Instead of following this model, we hear spurious things championed by Patrick Ekeji about Public Private Participation (P.P.P), which he uses to confuse greenhorn sports ministers, and involves outsourcing the sports associations to corporate bodies – a booby-trapped scheme designed to fail. Pray, how do you give out what does not belong to you?
In serious countries, no laws are passed by parliament to organise football or basketball or boxing or swimming or judo or sudoku or langa-langa (that one-legged sport discovered in Northern Nigeria some years back) or judo or taekwando. New Games and sports evolve and governments don’t legislate on them nor impose members on associations.
Membership of sports associations is voluntary and even the Police or Army which are creations of statute and therefore legal persons can choose to belong to these associations in the same way as you or I or P.Z Industries may. Membership as contained in the Articles of Association of each sports association may provide for criteria for membership, whether corporate or private and any legal person, natural or artificial should be free to join upon meeting these criteria. In short, you may come and you may go.
The English Football Association is a duly incorporated body organised under articles of agreement among its members. The English Premier League is a registered business. In the U.S, the National Basketball Association (N.B.A) is organised along the same lines. Even in South Africa, The South African Football Association (S.A.F.A) is an amalgamation of three regional football associations that came together after apartheid to organise South African football.
For amateur sports, in the U.S.A., all amateur sports are chartered to their National Olympic Committees, which are members of the International Olympic Committee. They receive subventions from their world bodies and are left to raise monies from their members and pursue their activities in a business manner through competitions, gate takings, television, merchandising, sponsorships and charities. Like in Nigeria, appropriate legislation is in place to render all donations to sports and other charitable giving, tax deductible.
Should there be no government supervision of any sort? Definitely not! Sports, is too important to Nigeria to be left completely unsupervised by government. After all, it is only in sports that we have a chance of defeating the U.S.A in any lawful activity. This supervision must however not be unconstitutional and must not provide an opportunity for theft. It therefore is recommended that a National Council for Fitness and Sports be established that will be headed by the president or his vice and that heads of relevant ministries including education, health and possibly infrastructure be members.
The starting point for our sports and our football is to withdraw all government subsidies. If this is done, the kleptocrats will run for cover and leave the genuinely interested to utilise their energies and resources to start afresh. From thence, proper restructuring will commence.
Agu Imo Esq. is a Director of Sports and Entertainment Law Association Ltd/Gte and served on the Presidential Advisory Commission on the National Sports Commission in 2007/08.
