Football is the number one game in Nigeria that is played and loved by a chunk of the population. The beautiful leather game is being played by youth at every available space in our neighbourhood. Talents abound these play grounds awaiting to be tapped and harness by good coaches who can use them for state, national and even international competitions.

Football administrators in Nigeria seems to have forgotten the fact that it is only when our youth football is developed through beautiful programmes that the game will grow. Who is responsible for organizing competitions like Sir Manua Adebajo youth football competition?. Many other competitions of our playing days are no longer played even with different competition names.

The Nigeria football association and Nigeria football league should see to it that forming committees to find out what takes away the glamour of Nigerian football as recently constituted by NFL is not the only problem but also, what are the causes of increase in football club mortality?. Today clubs like Abiola Babes Udoji Jasper and Leventis United are history and many others are seen to be following suite. When you look at clubs like BCC Lions of Gboko they are almost forgotten in our present football scene. Is it because the Benue Cement Company is not making profit in maintaining the club? The answer is obviously yes. Then we should search ourselves and make our football atmosphere to be conducive for investment, so as to attract both foreign and local investors into the game. But the biggest obstacle that stands the way of any prospective investor is the manner of our officiating where referees Robb clubs in away matches and sometimes at home. That negative action leaves a lot to be question on how safe is it to invest in the game?

The current situation is scaring individuals like Alhaji Ahmed Aruwa and many others from running football club business whereas people like Roman Abrahamovich were busy buying clubs like Chelsea, spending close to $800 million on the team.

Most of the big clubs in Nigeria today are owned by state governments who are running clubs not because of profit, but as social service to its citizens, who love football and as a public relations tool for the state image.

The states that are financing premier clubs for instance must pay extra attention to their club expenditure and activities for it to succeed. A case that readily comes to mind here is Enyimba’s success in wining the CAF Champions league back to back in 2003 and 2004. the governor of Abia State has made both official and personal commitment to make the state team a house whole name in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

It is rather unfortunate that today Enyimba is facing a lot of problems, may be because the personal commitment of Governor Orji kalu is not there due to his presidential ambition. Earlier Enyimba was demystified by the newly promoted Nasarawa United to proceed to the Super four. They vow to Orlando pirates and recently, its only hope of represent the country in CAF competition was dashed by Elkanemi in their F.A. Cup debut in Jos, where Enyimba lost by lone goal.

The state owned teams can only succeed as Enyimba did in its hay days, if the Governors will pay extra attention to their teams outside the usual approval and release of funds. Even at that they have to contend with the wrath of the referees who are sometimes unfair to clubs in away matches.

My questions here is that, is Enyimba nose-diving in the manner BCC lions and Berger did? Or is it going to be stronger than ever when Governor Orji Uzo Kalu realized his presidential ambition? What ever are the answer to these questions my appeals goes to the NFA/NFL to reorganize the football house and return the glamour of football by getting big time sponsorship and players, coupled with youth development programmes and ensuring fair officiating in all matches. Apart from fair officiating, efforts must be made towards making our law makers to enact laws that will bind on companies to sponsor sports in Nigeria as part of their social responsibility. That way we will have strong sponsorship that will enable clubs to buy big time footballers from over seas, and such players will in turn attract crowd on match days.

The NFA and NFL committees should look at the problems enumerated above and proffer solutions with a view to returning glamour to our terraces. The committee should recommend things that will make the climates ripe for investment, so that all our football lovers will resume watching local matches instead of watching European soccer on satellite.

The NFA as the football ruling body should come up with more meaningful ideas and committees that will ensure development of our football from the grass root to the national team level.

It is my sincere hope that the newly constituted Sani Lulu lead NFA will avoid the conspiracy that existed between some NFA, referees and NFL officials that refused our soccer the deserved glamour of producing the best winner in our league and F.A cup competitions.

The two bodies (NFA/NFL) should also come together to check the problem with our clubs and also find out why they die prematurely compared to clubs in Europe that were established over a hundred years back and currently doing well in the modern day football.

The state Governors on their part should keep it up and pay more attention to their clubs, because football requires more than just approval of funds, but personal motivation matters a lot.

Tahiru Bala

Department of Mass Communication

University of Maiduguri