Do the real proprietors (not those who masquerade as club owners who take instructions from their state governors) of domestic clubs in Nigeria care about the returns on the investments in the state-owned teams? Does it worry these State governors that those in charge of their teams run the place like a gaming machine rather than as thriving businesses with succession plans?
No wonder, these governors throw open the gate of stadiums to all and sundry, anytime they are in town with their politician friends. What a country!
Clubs in Nigeria apparently forbid exploring open channels to increase revenues by registering their enterprise in the Nigeria Stock Market. They have this siege mentality of running teams as boys’ clubs where emphasis rests on how well you have ended the season without referencing their books for auditors to peruse and ask critical questions on incomes, expenditures, and other related accounting sub-heads. Need I say that those governors who bankroll clubs heavily do so as a political tool to win votes during elections? The reason when they vacate their positions, the teams crumble like a pack of cards?
When governors lay waste to match venues by throwing the stadium’s gates ajar, why won’t their boys in such managements allow the clubs’ supporters of varying fanatical groups to man the gates?
A tidier setting would have been to sublet the aspect of manning the gates to experts in such business. That way, the clubs would know the games that fetch them money each season and plan to maximise profits each new season. Time was when clubs sold their matches involving rival teams to business-minded people. It helped such clubs increase their revenue outlets. Not so anymore.
It is only in Nigeria that professional league games are played without figures telling watchers of the game the best attendance per week and also releasing the correct figures from the gates. When made public, the figures help investors target their brands and services to stadia whose clubs have massive followership. I cringe when I see the inner perimeter fences of stadia in Europe decorated with adverts with rolls through the circuit to add ambience to the place on match days.
If our club owners had such plans, it would have been easier for them to have sponsors for different expense heads they have which in turn helps in making such a team solvent, irrespective of what their proprietors cough out seasonally.
These are some of the reasons clubs in Nigeria always go cap in hand-for cash seasonally. How would Nigerian clubs be buoyant when their owners pay lip service to such an important aspect of club administration as gate-taking?
At match venues, the entry points are always crowded, yet when you get inside the stadium, you are confronted with empty stands with few people who openly tell you that it is forbidden for them to pay gate fees. Some clubs with good methods of manning the gates, and getting the fans to pay, don’t know when to stop selling tickets to avoid overcrowding the premises.
Most of the terraces in stadiums in Nigeria are cemented with others having broken seats which could serve as flying objects of mass destruction when the unpleasant need arises. The overcrowding of the stadium speaks to the fact that their owners don’t know the seating capacity of the premises. Other times it is because such clubs’ managements are greedy, with the league body having a department whose duty is to ensure that clubs don’t sell tickets above the seating capacity of the place.
There have been instances where club management top shots wear the jerseys of their favourite foreign clubs to watch their teams on match days. Rather than flood the venues with their club jerseys, apparel, umbrellas, small fans, stickers etc. What you find are hawkers of sachets water, toxic spirits, cans of alcoholic beverages etc. The sports outlets surrounding the club’s stadium hardly sell kits of such teams. Rather the shops are flooded with wears of foreign clubs which some fans buy and flaunt with glee.
Isn’t this the reason Nigerian clubs don’t encourage their players to exchange their jerseys with their opponents after games? Most Nigerian clubs play games without name tags because it is convenient for them to give such jerseys to another player to wear with the organisers oblivious of such a heinous tendency. How many clubs in Nigeria wear home jerseys distinct from their away kits during the season? I support Bendel Insurance FC of Benin City, and the only way I can get the club’s jerseys to buy would be to buy it anytime I’m in Edo State and the team has a game. Not so, if I want to buy Liverpool FC of England shirts.
Except for clubs such as Remo Stars, Enugu Rangers, and perhaps one or two where you can truly buy the club’s jersey on match days, it would be easier for the proverbial Carmel to pass the eye of the needle than to get their clubs’ jerseys to buy. Clubs hide their figures to keep the tax mechanisms in the States otiose. Will State governors allow independently-minded people to run their clubs as businesses, not just a recreational hub?
I lost interest in watching games in Lagos when I noticed severally players hurrying to the stadium because their bus broke down or they were stuck in traffic. This second option of transportation logistic difficulties is common but is handled intelligently by delaying the commencement of such games. It is always laughable seeing players running onto the pitch panting. Let’s not waste space to playback in our mind’s eye how European teams storm the stadium with swagger inside state-or-the-art air-conditioned buses with the players either in suits or the club’s attires for that game. The game’s frills get to you as the buses literally crawl towards the venue’s entrance. Did I hear you say, dear reader, why don’t we have such buses here?
In saner climes, some of the clubs would have gone to Innoson Motors with irresistible packages that would convince the proprietor to do business with them. In no time, Innoson buses would populate such countries as the official buses of the league. Of course, GAC Motor Limited’s management would want to key into the novel developments. The spiral effect of this competition would be massive. My heart sank when I saw the picture of the seemingly rickety bus in which former Nigerian international goalkeeper, Christian Obi lost his life. How could such a bus be cleared for an intra-state picnic let alone a trip outside with the state’s sports ambassadors? Imagine the late Obi sitting inside one of these marvelous buses in Europe, he would still be alive. Good night, Obi, my friend.
Yearly, our representatives in the CAF inter-club competitions complain of the lack of matches to keep their players in competitive form as the reason for their early exits. Why the NFF executive board members have turned deaf ears to this disturbing trend beats one’s imagination. It doesn’t matter if the country’s representatives take turns being eliminated from every round of the competition. What insults our sensibilities is the yearly explanation after the teams must have crashed out that we would do something and nothing gets done about it.
It should worry the current NFF executive committee members that no Nigerian club has won a continental trophy in their reign. Are the members waiting for the time when state governors would decline to sponsor their clubs because of their ill-preparedness? The way things are going, a year would come where there would be winners but no sponsors with our opponents coming to Nigeria to walk over our teams.
By Ade Ojeikere @ The Nation
