Nigeria Content Online

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.”