KESHI’S HOME-BASED EAGLES WILL REVIVE THE NIGERIAN LEAGUES!

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Posted: Jan 08, 2012

Supersport is doing a great deal to promote and support African football, particularly through its expanding television coverage of domestic football leagues across the continent. It goes without saying that television is the most powerful tool to promote the business of sport. Football without television is like tea without sugar. At the same time, Supersport transmits matches of the English Premiership league, EPL, with devastating effect on the followership of local domestic leagues. Most stadia around the continent these days have the same characteristic - bare stadia terraces during local league matches. Except, perhaps, in South Africa, every where else on the continent the situation is the same - empty seats, sparse crowds and poor fields.
Recently, Steve Mawuyenga, the former Vice Chairman of Accra Hearts of Oak FC, one of Ghana’s most famous football Clubs, called me up from his Accra base and expressed concern over the matter, and wondered if I had any simple and workable idea about what could be done immediately to arrest the frightening situation. Steve was asking a question that has been reverberating in the boardrooms of many football federations across the continent for many years.

Of course, nothing can be done to diminish public interest in the English Premier league. It is such a well-packaged, well-televised, well-promoted, well-marketed and well-publicised irresistible product that any effort to tamper with it is doomed to fail. The motivation should not be to compete with it or make it the standard to beat, but to use it as a compass to create our own local football league variant that must have its own unique colourisation and excitement full of exceptionally gifted and celebrated stars with a brand of football that will hold captive all those watching at venues or on television. What needs to be done is to introduce some creative content around the leagues that will ensure that whilst the public still patronise the English Premiership, they follow, enjoy and support their own local leagues as well.

Of course, this means that football Administrators must engage artistic and technical creative minds to develop concepts that must make the Nigerian football league venues very friendly, colourful, crime-free, hooliganism-free, family-friendly, hygienic, and very entertaining. There must also be a proper program to establish a culture of club-supportership at the grassroots level where the people shall see football as business and a celebration of talent, the clubs as their property and investment, match venues as their theatre for artistic expression, and the actual matches as pure drama! Today, in Nigeria, even with scanty crowds and low patronage, supporters have turned football grounds into theatres of war where ‘not to win is to die!’. Attitudes must change for football to find its feet again at domestic level in most African countries, just as this whole subject would make superb intellectual discourse at another level and forum. Meanwhile, what interests me most as I write this is the one item in a long list of what needs to be done to kick-start addressing the issue. Something is sprouting in the Nigerian football space that may interest other African countries. It interests me.

Football is about the stars in the game. Stars are the exceptionally gifted players that do the exceptional and, sometimes, extra-ordinary things on the field of play. No league can thrive well and be marketable without them. Foreign leagues come to our local leagues, snatch away the best of our up-and-coming stars to burnish and colour their own leagues. Their clubs are passionately followed, matches are religiously watched, and the stadia are regularly filled to capacity with fanatical fans, all due to the presence of the superstar players on parade. An Argentine national team visiting Nigeria will attract little spectatorship without the assured presence of Lionel Messi. Brazil without Pele was never the same team. Pele singlehandedly filled the King George V Stadium in January of 1969 when Santos FC visited Nigeria as part of the club’s African visit. For information purposes only, in that year the warring armies of Nigeria and Biafra temporarily set aside their differences and halted their war just to be able to follow Pele’s performance against Nigeria’s national team in Lagos on radio! Late Haruna Ilerika, even as a student in secondary school, singlehandedly filled stadia across the South-West of Nigeria in his days. Everyone wanted to see his mesmerising dribbling skills. ‘Superbrat’ Etim John Esin attracted thousands of spectators to match venues like nectar to honey everywhere his club, Calabar Rovers FC, played. He was created by the media and promoted like no other player before, or since. They made him a god and every Nigerian, including those that knew nothing about the game, wanted to go to football grounds to see for themselves the wonder that was Etim. But it was Rashidi Yekini’s case that fully opened my eyes. Some 6 years ago, even when the debilitating effect of the English Premiership was well known and acknowledged, Rashidi Yekini, after a 5-year layoff from competitive football returned to the domestic league to play for Gateway FC for one season. Aged and rusty as he was, he still filled every stadium around the country every time he played during the 10 months period. He was such a mystical star, a goal-scoring machine, that people thronged to the local fields to watch him play. Rashidi split football fans between watching their irresistible Premiership matches and watching him control, turn, twist, race and shoot at goal at the local stadia. That’s the drawing power of an authentic football star!

The answer to Steve Mawuyenga’s question can be found in how to create authentic football stars even within our local leagues in an endless stream so that even when many go away prematurely to other foreign leagues, as they inevitably would, there will still be enough gifted stars to sustain great interest in the domestic league and massive followership by the football fans. That’s what is sprouting now in Nigerian football. I am not so sure what Stephen Keshi’s motivation for his recent actions and rhetorics are, but I can see great prospects in his recognition, elevation and promotion of Nigerian players in the domestic league, and his decision to raise a standing national team of home-based players. What a brilliant idea! When you look at the league the way it is now, one may not easily see and appreciate the budding stars as a result of poor coaching, poor pitches (including all those with artificial turfs), too much emphasis on technicalities at the expense of artistic expression and lack of financial incentives. But the opportunity to train under a coach of Keshi’s pedigree and experience, and to play in the Super Eagles without first moving to a European league, provides new hope. Stephen Keshi has been saying and doing the rights things so far. Rather than use the players’ movement to Europe as pre-condition for being a deserving Eagle, as has been the practise, Keshi proposes to use the psychological impetus of becoming internationals from the local league to give the players the essential physical transformational lift that will make them instant stars locally. Once they become stars and continue to play in the local league, with the help of the media drawing attention and celebrating them, interest to watch them will heighten, fans will return to the grounds to watch the new kids put on a show, and new names that will soon become a singsong will rent the air, and the empty terraces will start to fill slowly and steadily, once again!

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Comments

Chrisesse

Jan 08, 2012

I don't know who wrote this piece but d points are facts. I ll only comment on one point that is recurring in most article nowadays. Math7 made this point and now this article. Its this- our league need ball dribblers or jugglers and those who can make some magic on d field. We don't have them in Africa local leagues any more but I am particular abt nig. Look at d world fball, its such players that makes d game interesting and effectively improve the game locally and attract fans. Pele, Odegbami, Adokie, Yakini, Abidi Pele, Maradona, d Ronaldos, Messi Sylver of man city. These guys can keep d ball with them, run with it, and dribble among tackles rt-lt-center. C.Ronaldo is d best today becos although he is a midfielder, he scores goals like sand-sand. He did it in man u and now R.madrid where there are plenty of stars. Messi with just a little help from Xavi can take on face-2-face-headon, single handedly, d whole defence of a team. He ll dribble, meandering, snaking and dodging tackles to score. Its amazing. All these players were able to do these wonders becos they were given d freedom to express themselves without the coach overbearingly laying too much emphasis on teamwork, meaning, pass d ball quick-quick. If some of these local players that love dribbling from their primary-secondary-monkey post days to d NPL can be given such freedom to do whatever they want to do with d ball on d field, d league ll change dramatically, attracting fans and improving d game locally. Seminas can be organized to remind coaches of this. All teams in Europe and S.AMERICA have one or two players given that freedom. We can do it in Africa. We use to have them but no more now. Its sad.
Chrisesse

Jan 08, 2012

I don't know who wrote this piece but d points are facts. I ll only comment on one point that is recurring in most article nowadays. Math7 made this point and now this article. Its this- our league need ball dribblers or jugglers and those who can make some magic on d field. We don't have them in Africa local leagues any more but I am particular abt nig. Look at d world fball, its such players that makes d game interesting and effectively improve the game locally and attract fans. Pele, Odegbami, Adokie, Yakini, Abidi Pele, Maradona, d Ronaldos, Messi Sylver of man city. These guys can keep d ball with them, run with it, and dribble among tackles rt-lt-center. C.Ronaldo is d best today becos although he is a midfielder, he scores goals like sand-sand. He did it in man u and now R.madrid where there are plenty of stars. Messi with just a little help from Xavi can take on face-2-face-headon, single handedly, d whole defence of a team. He ll dribble, meandering, snaking and dodging tackles to score. Its amazing. All these players were able to do these wonders becos they were given d freedom to express themselves without the coach overbearingly laying too much emphasis on teamwork, meaning, pass d ball quick-quick. If some of these local players that love dribbling from their primary-secondary-monkey post days to d NPL can be given such freedom to do whatever they want to do with d ball on d field, d league ll change dramatically, attracting fans and improving d game locally. Seminas can be organized to remind coaches of this. All teams in Europe and S.AMERICA have one or two players given that freedom. We can do it in Africa. We use to have them but no more now. Its sad.
Daniel Paris

Jan 08, 2012

gud talk guy , we need players dat can do magic those coaches need to be lectured about the game so dat players can hv freedom to drible with the ball and do magic wit it , if dis can be done den local fans will come up to watch dis guys if we find two or three doing magics , i use to play football though not big team in france , but i could remeber when i was in ikorodu in lagos nigeria dey use to call me okocha den anywhere i play been torunament fans will trun up to watch my team play bc of wat the skill i got , it happen in all places i play den in abuja , osun particularly when i was in ousn wit a state team imagine bc of my skills dribling and entertaining dey hv to pay part of my ticket den to india wen dey saw my visa bc of my skills , dat is to say dat is wat we need in nigeria football piece of magic, okocha shuld hv continue a little while how yekini did and amokachie to bring back the fans in the stadium god blees nig god bless our league
4sbike

Jan 11, 2012

A country that its citizens has no personal identification numbers [authentic] can never ever, reapeat never ever enjoy sustainable development or thrive in any venture; and because those that attempt to lead in nigeria[ at all levels] are ignorant and illiterate to this fact that is why they do not even realise that thier survival as leaders is tied to this fact .There is no way to true success without planning and thre is no way you can plan without foundation and the foundation is government PIN numbers to members of its society.
Frank

Jan 12, 2012

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Frank

Jan 12, 2012

DO YOU HAVE AN MTN, GLO OR AIRTEL USB MODEM AND YOU WANT TO MAKE IT TO BE A UNIVERSAL MODEM TO WORK WITH ALL NETWORKS? CALL 07036550430 TO GET IT DONE IMMEDIATELY. NOTE: YOU HAVE TO BE WITH THE MODEM(S) BEFORE YOU CALL.
Royston Precious

Jan 16, 2012

One of the major problem i see, is that most of our league coaches do nt go for refresher courses to update themself so datz why they are so ignorant of modern practice in football they really need to give one or two players in evry team dat rit to drible and do sm of those magic to draw fans . For instance when i watched Edafe Egbedi play at the under 20s i was suprised at the kind of football he playd no dribling, just so mechanical and this was a boy i watched grow, he was so skilful dat we gather to watch him play even monkey post big boy drag him to be on their side b/c he mesmerise any body, i remember we use to cal him a combination of okocha and ronadinho but at the under 20s no single skil, and when i saw him after the tounament and asked him y he said he was playing to instruction. But i thank God 4 keshi what he is doing nw wil build the confidence of our home base players and save sm of them from the slavery deals they sign in sm of these obscure league lyk moldova , indonesia ,india nd even div 3 in malaysia. Our media also have a big role to play by promoting these players in all media be it print or tv most of these player we see are made by the media hype given to them in their country i.e the rooney's nd walcot we see today were made by their local medias, so our media should create sm super stars 4rm our rather than singing the praise who already know dat they are good.God bles nd help keshi God bles Nigeria.
John Odey Okache

Jan 18, 2012

Supersports is doing so much to promote football in Africa. To do more, I would like the channel to add live studio analysis to Nigeria Premier League (NPL) matches as well as flashing the NPL logo when a goal is scored. Also their cameras should face the spectators in the covered area of stadia instead of the empty seats in the popular stands. It is discouraging to watch a match in an empty stadium on the screen.
John Odey Okache

Jan 18, 2012

In the same direction as the writer of this piece, I have started a project called NIGERIA PREMIER LEAGUE SUPPORT INITIATIVE (NPL Support) based in Abuja. This aims to encourage every Nigerian football fan of an Europian club to choose one NPL club to support. In the long run fans will be brought back to watch NPL matches both at the stadia and on the TV. The project will involve transporting fans free of charge to stadia, analysizing and constructively criticizing management,coaches and referees' decisions, praying and wishing their teams well, celebrating teams' achievements responsibly, and so much more. If you like to join me, please call John 08034726081.
Frank

Jan 19, 2012

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