Nigeria stood still in ecstasy on Sunday, February 10 as the Super Eagles emerged champions of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations football tournament in South Africa. It was a performance that proved bookmakers wrong as many did not give the team a chance to go that far.
That victory was sweet for so many reasons, among which was that it came 19 years after Nigeria last won the trophy, it was a victory achieved away from home and coach of the team, Stephen Keshi, is the first Nigerian and second African to win the trophy both as a captain and as a coach. Worthy of mention is the fact that the allconquering team was a mixture of foreign and home based players.
Between 1995 and2012, it had almost become an aberration for any coach handling the Super Eagles to dream of having Nigeria- based players in the team to a major tournament. When Shaibu Amodu could not win the 1995 Confederations Cup (then called the King Fahd Cup) in Saudi Arabia on the back of Nigeria's Nations Cup victory the previous year, a section of the Nigerian community called for his head. His offence was daring to field home based players to "rubbish" the achievement of Clemense Westerhof before him.
Nigerians were quick to forget that throughout Westerhof 's stay in Nigeria, the Dutch man never took his eyes off the domestic league where he hoped to pick quality players that could give him the desired result for the nation. His style then was to draft the home based players into the national team and then help them get foreign clubs to sharpen their skills and increase their chances of playing on the global stage.
After the Amodu baptism in 1995, other coaches got the nod to try their hands on steering the affairs of the Super Eagles at different times. With the retinue of foreign based players being recycled and shuffled by the various coaches that came on board, Nigeria pushed, pulled and struggled to lift the coveted AFCON trophy without success.
When Stephen Keshi took over in December 2011 and started going round the Nigeria league venues, looking for players, the apostles of foreign based players echoed that he had begun his journey on a wrong footing that would not take him far on the job. But the former Nigeria international responded with by the results he churned out.
Keshi had a cordial and rewarding working relationship with Westerhof and, therefore, learnt a lot from the latter. He knew what the blend of foreign and home based players meant to the Super Eagles while Westerhof held sway.
Interestingly, at the time Keshi was appointed coach, the fortune of Nigerian players abroad was dwindling as many of them could not play for big clubs in the European leagues. Even those in the smaller clubs or lower leagues were not getting enough playing time to incubate them for the national team challenge. Yet these were the same set of players being relied on to take Nigeria to the Eldorado.
Keshi looked inwards for the possibility of salvaging the situation, thereby inviting home based players to the Super Eagles and assuring them places in the final team should they live up to expectation. Behold they did and formed the integral part of the team with which the Big Boss conquered Africa.
Keshi's rare action also helped to rekindle the Nigeria Premier League that had almost gone comatose through mal-administration and boosted the players' confidence.
Coincidentally, as Keshi gave a new lease of life to the Super Eagles, the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) saddled the League Management Company (LMC) with the responsibility of revamping the ailing league. The 2012/2013 season was a testimony to behold as the LMC came up with series of actions aimed at sanitizing the league that was hitherto characterized by intrigues inimical to progress. As expected, the actions of the LMC did not go down well with some of the clubs in the league as they felt deprived of the opportunity to launch their unholy plans for the season.
I felt no shock when, soon after the end of the last season, the "club owners/managers" came up with a resolution that the LMC's services were no longer required by the clubs participating in the league. The public reactions that followed the pronouncement are better played back in our memory than recalled here. The Nigeria Football Association was wise to react that the LMC could continue with the brilliant job it has started for the good of the game in the land.
From my observation and interaction with the LMC, an oppor- Keshi, LMC and Nigeria football tunity has beckoned on Nigeria to chart a new course for the transformation of the league and by extension football in the country. This is when all the stakeholders should come together to redress the anomaly that has endured for the past ten years.
In other parts of the world, football is a mega business that contributes immensely to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of many countries. The players earn so much in the functioning leagues and in turn pay taxes that benefit the government and people, part of whom form the support base of the respective clubs in those countries.
If Nigeria football is to be steered to the track of economic progression, the current status quo of government's firm grip on the clubs in the elite and even lower divisions of the league must change. Government's business in the business world is to provide the enabling environment and not to be a competitor.
When the enabling environment is provided for the private enterprise to do business successfully, government collects taxes from the successful businesses to sustain its obligations. It, therefore, becomes a win-win situation for the stakeholders and the government, thereby expanding the landscape for wider participation and greater benefits for all.
The time is now for government to give room for full private sector participation. This would bring about the required growth and development for the leagues and by extension, to football. Football business is based on Return on Investment and not on charity where government pumps in money that is never accounted for year in year out.
As it obtains for now, most club administrators, rather than pay players' wages and allowances regularly, prefer to spend a substantial part of their budgets on bribing match officials to swing games in their favour, thereby creating the impression that they are doing well on the job.
They have over time refused to realise that if the welfare of the players is given the needed attention and their emoluments paid as and when due, the lads would in turn play their hearts out and win games without necessarily seeking the assistance of match officials.
The way football is being administered in Nigeria today does not guarantee a pedestal for the private sector participation in the form of funding or sponsorship. The comic drama that has characterised the sponsorship bid for the premier league before the advent of the LMC is a case study.
Multi-national companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to football governing bodies and clubs in different parts of the world because of the excellent organisational cum administrative competences that are quite visible and endearing in those countries. This is the direction that Nigeria must now focus on in order to turn things around for the better. For, we can't continue to do things in the same way and expect to get different results.
The latest success can be built upon by adopting a different approach from what obtains currently in order to confront the challenges ahead. But the right things must be done at the right time in the right ways by the right persons to get the right results.
Ebhodaghe, a veteran journalist, writes from Lagos
Keshi has really improved the football in Nigeria and that is very fantastic.