From the pulpit to the pitch
Church-backed team showing soccer really is a religion in Africa
LAGOS — One of Nigeria’s biggest evangelical churches has taken its message from the pulpit to the pitch with staggering results.
Mountain Top FC — or MFM FC — plays in the Nigerian Professional Football League and is among the best sides in the country.
At Agege Stadium in Lagos, the ritual is the same before every match — players in their all-purple strip gather round a pastor in the dressing room to be blessed.
Then, trance-like on their knees and with hands turned towards the sky, they pray for victory.
“It’s a faith-based team, we don’t seek power from anywhere apart from prayers,” said coach Geoffrey Aghogi.
“We want this team to be the Real Madrid of Nigeria, the Chelsea of Africa!”
MFM FC was established in 2007 by the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM).
The church’s founder, Daniel Kolawole Olukoya, scoured the poverty-stricken streets of Lagos, Nigeria’s teeming megacity of 20 million people, on the hunt for talent.
Driving him on was “a vision from God” to guide young people away from “the vices of this world”.
“I hate it when youths get involved in crime and drugs... just because they have too much time to waste,” he explained.
The team rose quickly through the leagues and in 2014 won the Church World Cup in India, the same year it joined the top flight.
Last season, it finished second to qualify for the African Champions League.
Spreading the word
Charity isn’t the only aim of the church, which was founded in 1989 and now has hundreds of branches and millions of followers around the world.
“Part of the idea is evangelism,” said Olukoya, a smartly dressed 60-year-old whose every appearance is hailed by followers at his church that dominates the Yaba area of Lagos.
“Most of the footballers were not Christians. Some of them were Muslims. But they joined us to become serious,” he said.
Christianity and soccer have a long association in Nigeria and many other African countries, where it was introduced by Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries in the 19th century.
“In its education mission, the church has always been very important in spreading football in schools,” said David Goldblatt, author of The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football.
The Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, like other African churches to use soccer as a way to spread the gospel, made a “smart move”, he added.
“If you want to speak to the youth of Africa, where else would you go?”
Players themselves aren’t short of praise for their benefactor.
The “Olukoya Boys” are fed and housed and earn up to $2,500 a month — a small fortune in a country where many live on less than $2 a day and the minimum wage is 18,000 naira ($50) a month.
In return, MFM imposes strict rules on daily life: No alcohol, no drugs, no tattoos and no jewelry.
The practice of what it calls “aggressive prayer” — “Amen!” and “Praise the Lord!” — is encouraged as much on the pitch as at church.
“We try to be good ambassadors for the church and the country,” said Jonathan Zikiye, a 26-year-old defender.
The club doesn’t have a sponsor to pay for salaries, uniforms or overseas trips. Instead, the church finances everything with what Olukoya calls his “modest means”.
But in a country of 180 million people, where nearly 20 percent belong to a Pentecostal or Evangelical church, there’s no shortage of cash.
Donations come from collection plates and ‘tithes’ — the equivalent of 10 percent of salary that church members are encouraged to pay every month.
Chronic neglect
MFM FC’s rise has been in stark contrast to other clubs in Nigeria’s top flight.
Seventeen of the 20 sides are owned by the state, and sporting infrastructure has suffered from chronic neglect in recent years.
“Teams have no stadium to train at, no home ground, or they’re in a very bad state,” said Austin Okon-Akpan, head of sport at Nigeria’s private Channels Television.
Even defending champion Plateau United was forced to play matches in the African Champions League away from home because the club’s home stadium was not up to scratch.
Lack of transparency in how clubs are run has discouraged sponsors from investing, despite the obvious talent in Nigeria.
As a result, players and the public only have eyes for Europe, where the bulk of Nigeria’s World Cup-bound national team plies its trade.
“There’s no way I can play in another club of the league,” said Emmanuel Chukwuka Onuwa, a promising 21-yearold midfielder.
“After five seasons with MFM, if I have to leave, I want to go abroad.”