On a winger and a prayer: the miraculous rise of Mountain Top FC
LAGOS: One of Nigeria’s biggest evangelical churches was on to a winner when it set up a football club – backed by millions of dollars and the power of prayer.
Just over a decade later, Mountain Top FC or MFM FC are now in the Nigerian Professional Football League and among the best sides in the country.
At the 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 upwards to the sky, they give themselves up to God to ensure victory.
“It’s a faith-based team, we don’t seek power from anywhere apart from prayers,” coach Geoffrey Aghogi told AFP – and he made no secret of their ambitions.
“We want this team to be the Real Madrid of Nigeria, the Chelsea of (Africa)!”
MFM FC has had a meteoric rise since it was set up in 2007 by the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM).
The church’s founder, football fan Daniel Kolawole Olukoya, scoured the streets of poor areas in 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 what he said were “the vices of this world”.
“I hate it when the 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 they joined the top flight.
Last season, they finished second in Nigeria and qualified for the African Champions League. 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 added.
Christianity and football 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”.