The trouble with Nigerian football is a metaphor for the trouble with our game

The trouble with African football is neatly summarised in the drama that has beset the Nigerian football federation over the last two months. embarrassing episode which cannot have aided the team’s preparations against what many saw as a beatable and undercooked French team.

Money is never far from any controversy involving football federations and much of the post-mortem following the World Cup has focused on what happened to the $US3.6 million (Sh316 million) the Nigerian government had allocated to the federation to settle players’ allowances and handle other commitments.   

Unimpressed with the whole set up at the Nigeria Football Federation, the Sports ministry in Abuja demanded fresh elections to bring in new blood at the headquarters of the association which is named, oddly, the Glass House.

On July 24, members of the NFF executive committee met and passed a vote of no confidence in NFF president Aminu Maigari and called for investigations into “financial misappropriation, misapplication and maladministration” among top officials.  

“After thorough and exhaustive deliberations on the uncalled-for secrecy surrounding all financial dealings of the Federation and failure to call meeting of the Executive Committee for the past eight (8) months during which so many weighty decisions on Nigeria football had been taken by a small cabal within the Board, the Executive Committee passed a vote of no confidence on the NFF President, Alhaji Aminu Maigari,” they said in a statement.

BULLET PROOF INSURANCE

As we know in Kenya, world governing body Fifa offers bullet proof insurance to any officials accused of corruption or any other malfeasance and Zurich duly breathed fire and demanded reinstatement of the ousted officials.

The Nigerian federation faction agitating for change in turn called for elections. Fifa banned Nigeria from world football.

Nigeria blinked and reinstated the ousted officials on condition that there must be fresh elections. A general assembly was finally called for August 26. When Maigari and Secretary General Musa Amadu tried to attend it, they were arrested and barred from the meeting.

Fifa breathed fire again and effectively suspended Nigeria from taking part in a crucial Cup of Nations qualifier against the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Nigeria blinked yet again and the officials were returned to office. But every movie must have a twist in the plot and the Nigerian football one had a fine climax.

Amid demands for investigations into corruption at the NFF and with claims of the misappropriation of millions of dollars of the federation’s funds dogging officials… a fire ripped through the Glass House NFF headquarters destroying all the documents within it.

You have to admire Secretary General Amadu for keeping a straight face while explaining what happened:

“The fire started from the chief accountant’s office as I was told,” he said, according to the BBC.

“I just arrived at the office and saw the smoke and was not allowed to go upstairs, obviously, for safety reasons.

“Staffers would have been able to reduce the impact of the damage, but could not gain access into his office and as such could not quell or trace where the smoke was coming out from.

“But we must not engage in blame games and thank God that no life was lost. But this is sad and unfortunate.” Describing something as “sad and unfortunate” implies that it is an act of God beyond a man’s control, such as the flash of lightning or the eruption of a volcano yet in fact the reason Africa, with all its talent, punches well below its weight in world football is squarely due to the irresponsible, corrupt and shameless men who run its federations and gobble all the money that would make such a difference if it were channelled to youth development and scouting.

LITTLE WONDER

It is little wonder that Nigeria lost at home to the DRC 2-3 and that their team is a study in chaos, with one of the finest coaches in Africa Stephen Keshi working without a contract. This is before we go into the epic scandals that have been the norm in Nigerian football, from the disciplinary committee head who was caught taking millions of Naira in bribes from clubs, routine stories that foreign coaches have to share their salaries with officials and the like.

Fifa, meanwhile, steadfastly continues to play its role as the overlord of grand corruption. The trouble with Nigerian football is a metaphor for the trouble with African football. And in a few weeks, it has all been distilled into a simple drama in Abuja. Someone should make a movie.

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OSCAR PILIPILI

A gentle soul and a decent man breathed his last earlier this week. As a young Sports Editor at The Standard, there were few people I enjoyed working with more than Oscar Pilipili.

He was the best sort of colleague you could wish for. Entirely uninterested in the office politics and palace intrigue that is a feature of many newsrooms, effective at his job and blessed with a warm and generous personality.

He spent the best years of his life illuminating the careers of people outside the more popular fields such as football, athletics or rugby and was to be found on weekdays and weekends covering handball, volleyball, cricket, hockey and other such disciplines.

He had a particular passion for junior sports and his efforts can be credited in part for pulling in sponsors to the annual high school games circuit.

It was at such an event that he fell into sudden illness last week, while covering the East African Schools Games Championships in Tanzania and sadly died upon returning home on Wednesday morning.

He will be fondly missed.