What better examples can we use to illustrate the fact that our sports administrators are jesters than with the country hosting CAF’s Congress and Awards ceremonies? These administrators only get excited to act when there are things in the proposed ceremonies that would provide them the platform to pontificate about Nigeria football, irrespective of the fact that the game here is comatose. Our rankings with FIFA are dropping faster than the speed of light. No hyperbole intended.

How does it sound that CAF’s Congress and prestigious awards are held in a country whose FA board members resigned with the announcement of a Normalisation Committee whose members remain unknown as approved by FIFA? FIFA in a letter to the NFF signed by its General Secretary, Mattias Grafstrom, stated that the tenure of the committee ends on May 31, 2027, and that NO member of the committee should contest the NFF election into any position. When will the normalisation committee members be known?

Otherwise, how do you explain the eagerness by our administrators to host CAF’s Congress in Abuja and the continental body’s awards in Lagos? And there is celebration in the land? What would happen at the end of these two events is that there would be more Nigerians in CAF’s sub-committees with very few Nigerian players, coaches and referees decorated on the awards’ night. 

Is sports all about funding and administration? Not exactly. Without the athletes and the coaches, no sports events can be held. Athletes and coaches form the fulcrum on which sports thrive. Indeed, no soccer nation gauges its growth in the beautiful game by the higher number of players in other leagues in the world other than theirs. It is the reason our players keep seeming sealed lips when our national anthem is being sung before others. You need to see how our opponents render theirs with their full chests and pump the air with their fits at the end of the anthem rendition. You immediately know the team hungry for glory before the blast of the referee’s whistle.

Whereas CAF has refused to lower its standards to approve attempts made by the country to have any CAF approved stadium in Abuja and Lagos, our administrators didn’t need to flinch to get the Nigerian government to approve the funding of CAF Congress in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)? Or have we forgotten the countless visits by CAF officials to approve the former but now refurbished Onikan Stadium, Lagos among their stadia to host big international competitions? Yet, our officials knew what to do to get the Lagos State government to host an award which won’t excite Nigerians because we failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.

Or have our officials forgotten that Edo Queens FC of Benin City have been asked by CAF to come and play the mandatory 30 minutes allocated for stalemated games in spite of the fact that the Edo Queens have been rewarded by the State’s executive governor for winning the trophy with the hierarchy of CAF present at the event? What this CAF can’t do does not exist. What happens if Edo Queens concedes two goals in the extra-time, does it mean the team would lose the trophy which it won in the full glare of CAF chieftain via penalty kicks? It means Edo Queens would have lost the trophy due to CAF’s administrative tardiness?

Of course, nobody knows which of the countries between Cote d’ Ivoire and Morocco won the last edition of the Africa Cup of Nations? Again, this final game was played earlier in the year with the Elephants of Cote d’ Ivoire celebrating and crowned the champions until the Moroccans protested against the manner in which the game was concluded.  I digress!

The stench from Nigeria’s soccer’s broken calabash is suffocating, with people clutching the nostrils with one hand and sprinting as far as their feet can carry them – they want to avoid the looming epidemic. Who wouldn’t? Sad. Nigeria football is diseased. The ailment has defied human discovery or should I say comprehension. Many say the country’s cheapest game to organise has been struck by the unseen hands from the evil forest. Others say karma has caught up with us in the country following the catalogue of bearded men who have been used as age cheats in the past – leaving the grassroots as thick forests with the young boys and girls hanging onto buses as conductors and other menial jobs. And that is for those who have chosen to shun societal ills. The young girls busy themselves with trading in the markets whilst the ones who are ‘lucky’ get married as early as possible, thus changing their narratives for life.

Rather than cultivate proper nurseries anchored on proven and tested models adopted from successful European nations, our administrators have chosen quick fixes in allowing our age grade teams to be peopled by ‘boys’ with stunted growth masquerading as Eaglets. They complement these misfits by providing them with oversized jerseys to give the impression that they are kids. Indeed. Left in the lurch are the real kids in the different primary and secondary schools who ought to serve as the bedrock; whose ages are verifiable only by birth certificates, not sworn affidavits most times issued by unscrupulous agents. What becomes clear in the next six years is the presence of the small boys in the European teams we humiliated with goals graduating into other age cadres whilst ours melt away like ice cream placed under the scorching sun. Ours can’t graduate into higher cadres because that wasn’t what they were recruited to achieve – here today, gone forever. Not even tomorrow because the cheating must permeate.

In Nigeria, we have this must-win mentality, which shuts our eyes to the inherent sharp practices adopted by our mindless administrators. The NFF must immediately regulate the nurseries to have a common curriculum established by the federation. This would effectively eliminate the fake nurseries and soccer academies presently administered by shylock and unregistered owners to the detriment of the young boys and girls round the 774 Local Government Areas in the country.

There should be a synergy between the NFF and NIS in the training and retraining of coaches, who for the nurseries, would have been discovered, exposed and retrained at the NIS to meet the international standards. This idea of former footballers ‘graduating’ themselves into coaches without prerequisite training should be stopped.

In fact, any unqualified coach at the nursery stages must be weeded out and asked to head for the NIS to qualify as coaches after going through the mill. This would guarantee the establishment of playing styles unique to Nigerian teams across gender.  If we don’t regularise certain components which make the game exciting to watch, Nigeria’s ranking in world soccer would continue to plummet. We need to establish a style of play unique to us.

Countries we invade to convince kids who haven’t been to Nigeria to represent us have credible nurseries beginning from age five, where children are taught the rudiments of the game. Indeed, there is hardly any club in Europe, across all leagues, that don’t have thriving academies whose products are involved in weekly league schedules like their senior teams. These leagues have competitions bankrolled by the corporate world, with the talents discovered properly groomed and exposed to their senior teams whenever there is the need to plug leaky positions in such squads.