Nigeria Content Online

If
the current momentum in the country’s national football teams,
particularly the Super Eagles, can be sustained, then Nigeria may soon
return to the good old days when its players were the toast of European
clubs in the transfer market.

This is the view of
Shina Philips, one of Nigeria’s foremost FIFA and Nigeria Football
Federation (NFF) licensed football agents. He explained that the
downturn in country’s football fortunes, which only abated recently
with the appointment of Samson Siasia as Eagles gaffer, has made many
European clubs lose faith in Nigerian players and hence look to other
countries like Ghana to get their new stock of African talent.

For instance, in
the April football rankings released by FIFA, Nigeria is in the 38th
position while Ghana is 23 steps ahead leading the continent in 15th
place.

“Everywhere in the
world, clubs crave for good players because football is big business.
If you noticed, after the USA ’94 World Cup, there was a boom for
Nigerian players because we had a good national side. Once your
national team begins to produce results, it tells the entire world that
you have more in the kitty, it tells them that if the national team
could be as good as this, then the mine will definitely have more gold
therein” he said.

It would be
remembered that in the 90’s, Nigerian players were courted by big sides
like Dutch giants, Ajax, Italian clubs like AC Milan and Juventus and
also top German sides just to mention a few.

However it’s a
different case now, where second tier leagues in Greece, Belgium and
Turkey are now the major destinations of our top stars, though one or
two players ply their trade in the English Premier League.

“I remember one of
my friends; a Dutchman who is the manager of Bonfere Jo, he always told
me that; Shina, if you can get me another player like Okocha or
somebody that plays well like Kanu, then we have a deal” Philips added.

More worry

And on a sad note,
even though Nigeria has the highest number of FIFA licensed agents on
the African continent (119), many aspiring young footballers from the
country still keep falling prey to fake football agents.

Thousands of them
litter the streets of Europe, Asia and even the Middle East, all in
search of the proverbial “greener pasture”.

Unfortunately most
end up not fulfilling their dreams and thereby truncating these talents
by wasting away and living on menial jobs for survival. Some others
actually end up signing off their life away in slavery with some of
these ‘greedy’ clubs abroad.

Philips blamed this
sad trend of players selling themselves to slavery more on desperation
on the part of the players rather than illiteracy.

“There is no effect
without a cause, this disturbing trend you are seeing now is as a
result of the desperation of the players” he said.

“We are in a time
where Nigerian players are not selling in the international market like
they used to do formerly; it is a difficult time for the market
especially for the Nigerian players” he further explained.

Also contrary to a
previous media report, where Mr Philips was wrongly quoted as saying
Nigerian players are illiterate, the Italy-based agent said that it
will be wrong to make such assertions about Nigerian players.

“It will be wrong
to say Nigerian players are illiterate, they are not. Why because
anyone that goes through the primary education, secondary school and if
they are not able to further thereafter, doesn’t make them illiterate”
he said.

“It is safer to say
that the players are not informed in certain areas but it would be
erroneous and unfair to say that these players are illiterate” He
however advised players that it is safe for them to always have a legal
adviser and to have their agents watch whatever they want to sign.

Right direction

Fortunately, the
NFF is not oblivious of the role players’ agent can play in the
development of football in the country, hence the decision to partner
with Matchmakers Consult International in organising a players’ agent
workshop. Already the organizers of the maiden two-day workshop billed
for May 13 and 14 have confirmed the availability of its resource
persons for programme.

Marco Leal, who is
coming from world football-governing body, FIFA’s headquarters in
Zurich, Switzerland, is among the resource persons for the much
anticipated programme, which the NFF and the organizers believe would
make licensed match and players’ agents, better managers of their wards
and utilise the opportunities they have.

Also confirmed for
the event is Branco Martins from the European Football Agents
Association, Musa Amadu who is acting general secretary of the NFF and
Ian Birkmyre of the UK Consulate.

Super Eagles’ head
coach, Samson Siasia; NFF’s principal legal officer, Barrister Okey Obi
and president-general of the Nigeria Football Supporters Club, Rafiu
Oladipo are also involved.

Others expected to
contribute during the workshop include the secretary of the Association
of Professional Footballers of Nigeria, Austin Popo; NFF’s Nasiru
Jibril; financial and investment advisers; television presenter,
Charles Anazodo and the executive director of the Ondo State Football
Agency. Mike Idoko.

The workshop takes place at the Four Points Hotel by Sheraton, Lekki on May, 12 and 13, 2011.

At 61, Mohammed Bin
Hammam, president of the Asian Football Confederation, knows his quest
for the FIFA presidency, up for grabs on June 1 in Zurich, is the last
throw of the dice for his career.

Seeking to topple
the politically-savvy Joseph Blatter, incumbent president of FIFA for
13 years, and its general secretary for 17 years before that, is an
extremely tall, some say impossible, order, even with the immense
wealth at the Qatari’s disposal.

“If I do not go for
what I believe today, there will be no other chance for me. I cannot be
going for this seat at the age of 70,” Bin Hammam confessed to me a
week ago, during an exclusive chat at his Kairaba Hotel suite in
Banjul, capital of The Gambia.

“FIFA is a great
organisation and many people have been touched by it in one way or the
other, because our sport is the most popular in the world.” “However,
FIFA has been facing too many accusations about corruption, even though
I have not seen any corruption within FIFA. We need transparency and
more teamwork [within the executive committee], which is missing.”

But Bin Hammam’s
15-year stretch on the FIFA executive committee, playing a key role
within it, leaves him with very little room to play the reformer’s
card, as he is the ultimate insider, I tell him.

Not surprisingly,
he strongly disagrees. “Having been a member of the Asian Football
Confederation for eight years before I became president, I know, from
my own experience, that if you are not in the leading position, you
cannot influence the major decisions.” “For sure, I have raised my
voice so many times [in the FIFA executive committee] over the last 15
years and have opposed the president within the four walls of our
meeting rooms, but without being at the top, one cannot make the needed
changes.” “I never thought of challenging Sepp Blatter, as I have been
with him from the beginning. But he told us that he only wanted two
terms. But those two finished and he asked for and got a third term and
now wants a fourth. It looks like things are not going to end
anywhere.”

Travelling to The
Gambia, not exactly one of world football’s premier destinations, Bin
Hammam sought the votes of FA bosses from the region, who met under the
auspices of the West African Football Union (WAFU), Nigeria being a
conspicuous absentee at this event.

“I am here to
campaign amongst friends and brothers. I have conveyed my worries and
problems to you and always tried to find joint solutions to our
problems,” he told the WAFU delegates.

But the decision of
Bin Hammam – and the other Asian members of the FIFA executive
committee – on July 6, 2000, to vote for Germany as the 2006 World Cup
host, instead of South Africa, severing a longstanding football bond
between the two continents, left a particularly sour taste in African
mouths.

When I confronted
him seven years ago in Malaysia, on what many, including CAF president
Issa Hayatou, saw as a betrayal of that alliance, Bin Hamman did not
express regret over his choice.

“The four [Asian
members of the FIFA executive committee] left the voting room with
clear consciences. We made a decision that was in the best interest of
world football.” And the passage of time has done nothing to alter his
view.

With Blatter and
Joao Havelange, his predecessor, spending a total of 36 years in the
presidential chair, many have called for an insertion of an eight-year
limit, consisting of two terms of four years, into FIFA’s statutes.

“Frankly speaking,
I agree with that,” Bin Hammam says, “because the game has developed so
much and I think a president should be able to achieve his goals within
that period.”

For Bin Hammam’s
thoughts on the controversial award of the 2022 World Cup to his
homeland of Qatar, his response to widespread allegations of his “undue
influence” in Africa and his deeper feelings on Blatter, read next
week’s ‘Point Blank’ for the final part of this special.

Ahmed Musa, is
without a doubt, the biggest name in the Flying Eagles team to the
African Youth Championships (AYC) in South Africa, and justifiably so,
following his achievements over the past couple of years.

Last season, while
still playing for Nigerian club side Kano Pillars, the speedy VVV Venlo
of Holland forward finished as the top scorer of the Nigerian Premier
League with a record 18 goals.

He also played a
key role in Nigeria’s Super Eagles ‘B’ team’s successful march to
victory at the WAFU Cup decided last April on Nigerian soil, and has
since then gone on to gather a handful of caps for the main Super
Eagles team, grabbing a goal in Nigeria’s recent 3-0 success over Kenya
in Abuja.

Musa, thus arrives
at the AYC, along with Flying Eagles teammates Terna Suswam and Stanley
Okoro, as one of a handful of players who have already been capped at
senior level by their respective national teams.

But even his
participation at the AYC remains uncertain, despite assurances from the
Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) that the 19-year-old will be released
by his Dutch club, who are desperately fighting against relegation from
the top flight division, for the AYC.

According to
information made available to NEXT by the NFF on Thursday, Musa will be
arriving South Africa today ahead of tomorrow’s game against Ghana.

Flying Eagles coach John Obuh also confirmed this to NEXT prior to his team’s departure for the tournament.

“That was also the information I got and it is a welcome development because he is crucial to our plans,” he said.

He added: “His teammates are already looking forward to seeing him.”

It won’t be Musa’s
first time playing under Obuh in the Flying Eagles team as he had
featured in some of the team’s pre-AYC qualification games.

But even as his
teammates await his arrival later today, he won’t be available for the
entire duration of the tournament, as he will only get to play the
opening two games against Ghana and Cameroun before returning to
Holland to play for Venlo, thus missing next Sunday’s game against
Gambia.

Obuh however hopes
qualification for the semifinals, along with a spot at this year’s FIFA
World Cup in Colombia, would have been secured by then.

“I guess that is the option available to us but we hope to have qualified for the semi-finals before our last match,” he added.

The
11th edition of the Africa Youth Championship starts today and the road
to stardom for some of the players will also start from Johannesburg.
As players from the eight countries gather, the teams all have a common
goal – to be crowned champions at the end of the tournament on May 1,
but only one of them will take that accolade.

Though the
Federation of International Football (FIFA) introduced age-grade
football competitions, i.e. the U-17 and U-20s, to breed a new set of
football stars, only once has a country from Africa won the U-20 world
championship and that was Ghana in Egypt in 2009.

Nigeria, though a
‘powerhouse’ in age grade football, not only in Africa but in the
world, going by the records but for all that muscle flexing,

Nigeria has never
won the U-20 World Cup, on the six occasions that she has participated.
For the African version, the country in the 90s won five successive
trophies and has been quasi-successful in the 2000s. The closest has
been final appearances in 1989 in Saudi Arabia and in 2005, when the
team led by Samson Siasia came very close but lost to Argentina.

The culture of
breeding players through the youth ranks should be the main focus of
the tournaments, so we will look at players that have been able to
graduate and move successfully into the senior team after their stint
in the U-20s.

Looking back over
the years, a lot of talent has moved up the ladder and most notable
amongst these graduates is Mutiu Adepoju, who won silver at Saudi
Arabia in 1989 and went on to represent the country at three World Cup
tournaments. There have been others like Etim Esin, Austin Okocha,
Taribo West and now the likes of Mikel Obi, Taye Taiwo, Chinedu Obasi
and many others who were part of the 2005 U-20 set.

Comparison with Europe and the Americas

Lately, we all can
see the genius of Lionel Messi, week in and week out but the little
Argentine first came to the world’s consciousness with virtuoso
performances for the U-20 team in Holland in 2005. Now, just six years
after, he has won the World Player of the year award twice already,
with many more in view.

Diego Maradona was
a product of the first championship in Tunisia in 1978 and went on to
win to captain his country to a World Cup triumph in 1986. The most
explicit example of what this cadre can do, is Spain. They won the 1999
edition in Nigeria with Iker Casillas and Xavi in their squad and 12
years after, they went on to form the core of the team that brought
Spain its first World Cup. Ronaldinho was also in Nigeria in 1999 and
he also is a proud winner of the World Cup in 2002.

One of the
Nigeria’s opponents at Egypt 2009 was Germany and the junior Mannschaft
had players like Sven Bender and Lewis Holtby in the squad. Two years
after, Rabiu Ibrahim, a Nigerian midfielder, who was adjudged to be a
better player than both Bender and Holtby, just got signed by a Dutch
club,

PSV Eindhoven.
Meanwhile Bender and Holtby are regulars with Bundesliga sides,
Borrusia Dortmund and Mainz FC respectively. Also, the two players are
now full German internationals and you can almost say that they will be
at the next World Cup tournament in Brazil. That is called progression
and that is why FIFA set up the tournament.

The question then
is – when will a set of players from the African continent, who were
discovered at this level, lead their country to at least the semi-final
of the world event? That is the million-dollar question.

FIFA will look at
these examples and postulate that the concept has worked because it has
borne fruit for some countries but Africa is not enjoying as much a
success as these afore mentioned countries and analysts have said, the
issue is age-falsification. At U-20 level, the players are almost full
grown professionals but if they are really below the age limit, they
will continue to progress at a steady pace but for the Africans – the
insinuation is that they are already fully grown at that level and do
not improve any further.

But there is Ghana’s example

Though there might
be various explanations for the non-progression of seemingly more than
averagely talented players, there are still some postulations that can
be made. In the local league set up in most African countries, bar some
in the North and South Africa, player development in not taken
seriously. However the most common denominator in Africa is using
over-aged players to play the U-17 and U-20 tournaments that yield
quick ‘fruits’ for the players, their families and the coaches but
which five years down the line, the countries will come to rue.

But the only
African winners of the U-20 World Cup, Ghana have shown at least from
the promotion of most of the victorious 2009 set, that if done
properly, the national sides are the ultimate beneficiaries. The Black
Stars introduced six players from the victorious U-20 side into the
full national team that reached the quarter final of the 2010 World Cup
in South Africa. Players like Dominic Adiyah and particularly Andre
Ayew, captain of the U-20 side, showed with their feet that they can
progress to the next level and also perform well. Ayew even got
nominated as the young player of the tournament, though he lost out to
Thomas Mueller of Germany.

So as this 11th edition kicks off, the question that needs to be
answered is not, who will win the competition but which countries will
produce the football players that will take their country to a World
Cup triumph, let us say in Qatar 2018? That is the question that must
be answered as the eight countries join battle starting today in South
Africa.

Two
years ago in Rwanda, Nigeria’s Flying Eagles finished a disappointing
third at the African Youth Championship after coming from a goal behind
to beat South Africa 2-1 in the bronze-medal match.

Disappointing
because, other than being the most successful team in the history of
the tournament, having won it a record five times, the Nigerian team to
the 2009 AYC, consisted of the core of the Golden Eaglets team, that
two years earlier, had emerged winners of the 2007 FIFA Under 17 World
Cup in South Korea under the tutelage of the late Yemi Tella.

But under Ladan
Bosso, the Flying Eagles team failed to shine under the Rwandan sun and
crashed out in the semi-final stage to Cameroun following a 2-0 loss.

The team,
nevertheless, still qualified for that year’s FIFA World Cup in Egypt
but Bosso was to pay the price for the Flying Eagles’ failure to lift
the AYC trophy as he was fired by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF)
and replaced with current Super Eagles coach Samson Siasia who went on
to lead the team to Egypt, where they failed to go beyond the round of
16.

Such is the
pressure that goes with handling the Nigerian under 20 side; a side
that has, in addition to winning the AYC title on five occasions,
finished second on two occasions at the World Cup – in 1989 and 2005 –
as well as a third-place finish in 1985.

New era

Current Flying
Eagles coach, John Obuh, will do well to return home with the trophy
even though his immediate priority is claiming one of the four slots to
the World Cup in Colombia; slots that are reserved for the four
semi-finalists at the AYC.

“We want to qualify
for the World Cup. That is our target, but we also want to win it. But
that is also the target of all the other teams that will be coming for
the tournament,” Obuh told NEXT, prior to his team’s departure for
South Africa.

He added: “It will
be a great achievement to win this tournament. We have prepared well
and we have a good team. All we need now is the support and prayers of
Nigerians, as well as some luck because that also plays a key role in
any tournament.”

Obuh definitely
knows the importance of having good fortune at championships as he was
in charge of the Nigerian team at the 2009 FIFA Under 17 World Cup
hosted by Nigeria, where his team rallied from being three goals down,
to play out a thrilling draw with Germany in the tournament’s opening
game, before making it all the way to the final where they slipped to a
1-0 defeat to Switzerland.

And the one-time
Super Eagles invitee hopes to go all the way this time around and not
suffer the pain of defeat at such a crucial stage of a tournament.

“It was a huge
disappointment losing to Switzerland, especially after coming so
close,” he continued. “But all that is in the past and I don’t think we
will face a similar situation this time around.

“A lot of the boys
from two years ago are in this team and are more matured, so if we get
to the final this time around, I am sure we will get a better result. I
believe we will have better fortune this time around,” added Obuh, who
won’t be with a few of his stars from the 2009 Golden Eaglets team.

Old faces

This includes Sani
Emmanuel, who finished the 2009 Under 17 World Cup as one of the
tourney’s standout players. There’s also central defender, Kenneth
Omeruo, as well as his captain from two years ago, Fortune Chukwudi,
who was involved in an age controversy.

“We all know what
happened to Fortune, so there’s no need to elaborate on that. As for
Sani, he would have been in the team but he is not presently in the
country,” disclosed Obuh. “He is in Italy with Lazio but he is still a
part of my plans once he sorts out everything with the club.”

He added: “Kenneth
Omeruo was also with us before going to Belgium in search of a club but
we can’t wait for him as we had to move on.

“We can’t be held to ransom by any player and I believe the players we have in this team will do us proud in South Africa.”

Obuh can however
count on the availability of the likes of Stanley Okoro and Ramon
Azeez, who were also stars of his U-17 side, and who now play their
football in Spain.

But regardless of
how many overseas based players are in the side, the tournament will be
holding at venues thousands of feet above sea level, which means
thinner air and lower oxygen levels for the players.

One way of adapting
to the situation is by training at high altitude areas prior to the
commencement of the championship, as has been the case with a number of
teams coming for the AYC, most notably Ghana who were in Kenya up until
Thursday when they left for South Africa.

The Ghanaians are
the tournament’s defending champions and will open their defence with a
game against the Flying Eagles on Monday. And Obuh hopes all goes well
in that game.

“We couldn’t do
that (high altitude training) but we will try to ensure that this does
not affect us adversely, especially in our first match against Ghana,”
explained Obuh.

“By the time we get to play our second game against Cameroun, the players would have adapted to the situation.”