For the first time in twenty-something odd years, Nigeria missed out on the CAF championship, a position that most Nigerians have taken as a birthright, much like the often repeated speculation that some Northerners have taken power as a birthright. Like the Northerners, Nigerians as a whole have seen it is not so and as such this year’s CAF championship is missing a lot of Nigerian viewers and not to mention the sponsorships that would’ve come with from telecommunication companies and so on had Nigeria qualified, which brings me to my topic of discussion; curing the sports industry, specifically football. First of all let me state, I’m not that big a football fan. I mean I don’t get a heart attack when my team loses and I don’t put off meeting my girlfriend just to watch a match, providing I had a girlfriend to begin with, but what I believe I do have is what most Northerners are known for (and perhaps only good at really). I have administrative skills (read: the power to tell people what to do… or at least the desire to want to boss them around.) With that I present to you a solution, yes, the only good one I could think of. First, let’s look at some of the problems.
Nigerians have witnessed all manner of questionable activities concerning football in Nigeria from corruption at the top level of the NFA to the issue of the age of certain players in and out the country to a perceived lack of commitment from some of our players to an all round lack of consistency in the handling of our sports affairs. Lots of various “solutions” have been offered like getting a foreign coach and yadda, yadda, yadda. The only solutions that don’t seem to be really heard are the ones that come from people who really love the game and not the politics of it; people who would rather watch homegrown players and see a match between two Nigerian clubs than Liverpool vs. Man U.
So we come to where I think the answer may be: we go local. Starting with the local football league, which suffers from a lack of attention usually skewered instead towards foreign leagues. The idea isn’t to necessarily get local football on TV as that may seem like the most likely solution. That’s already been done and it hasn’t changed anything. The solution lies in the teams themselves. There are only two well-known or should I say celebrated football academies in the country; the Pepsi academy and the Kwara State football academy. Two academies alone are not going to produce the champions of tomorrow, let alone today. It is with this in mind, that I suggest that every local team have a youth team as part of their organization. The advantages cannot be understated. For one, the clubs will have a pool of players to choose from to join their A-team. Second, for the youth, whether or not they end up being superstars or not, it will keep them preoccupied at an impressionable period of their lives.
Now, some clubs might bring up the issue of money and what and how much it takes to financially handle a youth team, but when they look at the cost against the advantage of having a youth team, they will realize the advantages outweigh the cost in the long run. With a solid base like this in place, I believe everything else will become easier to solve, because you can’t have football without the players. There are also always sponsors willing to lend a hand to support such initiatives like youth clubs so I don’t think it would be hard for teams that are serious about doing so and let’s not forget nearly all the local teams in Nigeria are state-sponsored.
