I love football. Just like many young boys growing up, I played the game on the street, got injured, got into trouble at home and struggled to get on my secondary school team. During my youthful years, football was attractive to boys of my age for reasons I just cannot explain. Even toddlers soon become attracted to the inflated balloon which they kick everywhere. It is magical. Football is passion. Typical football fans can go crazy over their teams. Some have committed suicide or murder in solidarity with clubs and country. Over the years, reports of football fans having heart attack while watching their favourite teams’ play have confounded us all. But that is football for you. At home, football can be a source of conflict between husband and wife. During World Cup games, men are known to sit at home to watch their teams play. The wives are meant to understand that their husbands are crazy about football and must be allowed to watch matches without interference. In the past, when a family had just one television, the insistence of the man to watch football could create quarrel between him and his wife whose favourite TV show might suffer at the time. In such testy times, the remote control became a prized item in the house. The husband clutched it jealously and warned the wife and children not to change the channel otherwise they would “see his red eyes’’. In extreme cases, some husbands became violent in their bid to maintain control over their right to watch football. In some countries, men have been reported to kill their wives. In one World Cup game, one man reportedly threw his wife from a high rise building. The man committed murder because his country lost. Nothing can be weirder. What is in the game of football that makes people kill? Football has produced scarier tales of the bizarre fans behaviour. In one instance, one man was found dead in his apartment after his team lost. The notorious English fans are known for their violence. In Eastern Europe, football stadia have become theatres of resurgence of anti-Semitism and xenophobia. But the question I ask is: If football is meant to unite, why all the hate and banana throwing? Nigerians are crazy about football. For example, as I write this piece on Monday afternoon, the Super Eagles are playing France. The Lagos streets are unusually empty and deserted. Football is a game that brings Nigerians of all ethnic backgrounds together. When our teams are playing, we forget their differences. We grieve our loss together as one ‘united’ nation. We savour their victory as proud Nigerians. We embrace our football heroes. How I wish we can replicate football patriotism in our national life; in our relationships with fellow Nigerians. That is the power of the game. In many nations of the world, football is a national passion. It is the only game that has the power to draw millions in viewership across nations. In America, where football never used to be a national game, it is fast gaining acceptability. Soon the Yankees will become a football nation. Their Major Soccer League is attracting big name footballers. Our country has had her glorious years of football greatness. But a bad spell of football administration has destroyed our league and led to ‘football brain drain’’. Nigerian footballers have made name and big money abroad. But our league has suffered a dearth of quality players that used to grace our major stadia in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many of the known footballers, even our current national coach, Stephen Keshi, plied their trade in Nigeria before they went abroad. But we cannot blame younger footballers. Nigeria has consistently failed its heroes. Players are owed allowances. They are abandoned when they get injured. Why kill yourself on the pitch only for football administrators to rip footballers off? It is the reason why our league has declined. It is the reason why players will never be patriotic. I am currently enjoying the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. I loved the opening ceremony that showcased the beauty of Brazil Amazon forest. In 2010, the World Cup came to Africa for the first time. It was momentous. South Africa made a success of it. It was an opportunity for the Rainbow nation to showcase its tourism potential after years of apartheid. Nigeria has hosted FIFA competitions before-especially the age grade competitions. But I am not sure we seized the opportunities to showcase our country to the world. Instead, our football administrators will jostle to corrupt themselves and the system. The dilapidated states of the National Stadia in Lagos and Abuja paint the picture of our poor maintenance culture. I have never been to any World Cup. But I have been fascinated by the once in four year spectacle on TV. My first real experience of the World Cup is the story of one Edson Arantes Do Nascimento famously known as Pele of Brazil. His wizardry with football is the stuff of legends. Pele is the hero of four World Cups. Pele is a world hero. There was also Johan Cruyff and Jack Charlton. Then there is the great Diego Maradona who also completes the list of football legends whom I idolise. The Brazilian team was invincible. They are still revered. In Nigeria, our own “Thunder” Balogun never made it to the World Cup but we also idolise the heroes of the 1980 Africa Nations Cup won in Nigeria. It was sad that Segun Odegbami and his team-mates never made it to the World Cup when Godwin Odiye scored an own goal against Tunisia in 1978 that nailed our qualification. In 1994, we made our first appearance at the World Cup in the United States of America. The Super Eagles led by Stephen Keshi was arguably Nigeria’s best team since the Green Eagles of 1980. The team almost ruled the world. But their fairy tale journey to winning the cup was soon cut short by Italy when Roberto Baggio scored a late penalty that broke our hearts. We remember the class of 1994 with fond memories. In our first game, we demolished Bulgaria. It was in that game that the late Rashidi Yekini scored Nigeria’s first World Cup goal. His celebration, as he shook the net, was seen around the world. The Yekini image became one of the iconic pictures of that World Cup. Yekini later died a broken and sad man. The tragic end of Yekini is the metaphor of our nation; a country where heroes die frustrated and unsung. We have been to other World Cups since our first appearance in 1994. But none can match our performance in a competition where the Super Eagles was voted as the most entertaining team. As I was about to conclude this piece, the referee blew the final whistle on the Nigeria/France match that signalled another disappointing end to our World Cup campaign. France had beaten us. I walked out of the house to see Nigerians wearing long faces. What do we expect? We went to Brazil with a rag-tag team of second rate players struggling in their teams in Europe. We went to the World Cup with the same greedy and selfish officials of the Nigerian Football Federation quibbling over allowances. We had the largest delegation in the world at the tourney, it was reported!
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 04:45:59 +0000
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