Nigerian Football — Stuck In The Mud Of Leadership
TODAY, Nigerian football is beset with very many challenges. That’s why despite the abundance of talent in the country, taking domestic Nigerian football to another level has become seemingly impossible. It has been stuck for almost three decades now in the mud of ignorance.
What is happening is captured aptly in the words of renowned Nigerian writer, Labisi Olagunju, who wrote in his newspaper column last week: “bush is the way - because the blind is the guide”.
Successive football administrators of the past three decades, in particular, did not fully appreciate nor understood the importance of a particular missing puzzle in the jigsaw of Nigerian football. They look everywhere else for answers except in the direction of this most vital of ingredients for football development at the highest levels.
Now, the riddle.
A. It is the single most important item in the list of requirements to complete genuine football development in Nigeria. It is also the cheapest to provide.
B. Without it, Nigerian football, including players and coaches, cannot grow to the highest standards in the world.
C. Without it domestic football can NEVER attract enough public and corporate followership to become big business! D. Out of ignorance or greed, it is the least considered and most disregarded item in football development conversations.
E. It is the reason why European clubs and national teams turn down invitations to play in Nigeria since the 1990s
F. It is the reason why retiring Nigerian internationals from Europe are not attracted to play in Nigeria’s domestic leagues after they retire.
G. It is the reason why the Super Eagles do not have a permanent home ground, and would always struggle to play well in their own country, moving from one failed stadium to another?
Ironically, there is only ONE answer to all of these very numerous, important and critical questions.
The football ground - the turf on which matches are played!
In the year 2024, there is only one football ground in the whole of Nigeria that has a playing surface that comes close to what is good for first- class international football matches – the ultra- modern Uyo Township Stadium. But even that stadium’s turf is still some ways from attaining the standards that we saw at all the 6 stadia used during AFCON 2023 in Cote D’ivoire, a few weeks ago. It is the playing turf of the stadia at AFCON 2023 that separated that championship from most others before it. Matches were easier to play for the players, and definitely more attractive for the watching audiences.
The great fields of natural grass, nurtured and manicured to perfection, allowed for excellent coverage of the matches also, great performances by the teams, suspense, drama, great goals, and the highest quality of football in recent AFCON history.
The FIFA President, Giovani Infantino, was so impressed he suggested, after the championship, that Cote D’ivoire should consider bidding to host the World Cup of 2038! It is mostly down to the football turfs that produced very high- quality matches.
The fact is that great football can only be played on great fields. The worse the playing pitch, the less the standard of play. And great turfs, despite all the advancement in other surface textures and materials, are of natural grass on good soil – no more no less!
The use of any other materials aside the right kind of lush green natural grass for football diminishes the quality of games attainable.
In Nigeria, in the past three decades, the country’s administrators have been misled into investing in artificial or hybrid turf for major stadia other than grass, with the excuse of the challenges posed by the country’s lack of a proper maintenance culture, non- availability of enough water to sustain essential watering regimen, and a lack of discipline in the control of the field’s usage by teams. All these are genuine observations, but not enough reasons to substitute what is necessary for what is convenient or expedient.
All manner of artificial or hybrid of artificial materials are being sold as acceptable standards by the merchants of that technology. They may, indeed, be better than sandy surfaces or fields of grass stubs, but surely cannot replace the surfaces that all the major stadia where Premier League and the international matches are played.
Premier League clubs and all the major stadia in the country with ambition to host Grade- A international matches, and to develop the domestic leagues and its players, need to heed this call for an upgrade of playing turf to natural grass in order to take their football development above the present plateau.