This season, Nigeria is represented by four clubs on the continent. Rangers International and Rivers United in the CAF Champions League, and Shooting Stars and El-Kanemi Warriors in the CAF Confederation Cup. The story is already familiar – while two have bowed out in their very first game of the tournament, the two that remain now face a heavy North African hurdle. We celebrate qualifiers in June, we get humiliated in September. Rivers United and Shooting Stars are just the latest victims. But the problem is not juju, not luck, not referees. It is systemic. These were teams who had pole position to advance but they refused to do what was needed to get over the line.
The NPFL is now a feeder league for the continent’s _smaller_ leagues. That is how far we have fallen. Our local players have taken their football to African countries whenever the slightest opportunity arises.
We pay our champions peanuts. How can you pay a star striker N150,000 a month and expect him to face a Tunisian defender earning $10,000? Good players don’t stay. They emigrate to Rwanda, Tanzania, Sudan, Kenya, Europe, even Vietnam. We export goals and import regrets. Just look at Shooting Stars – their best two players last season, Ayobami Junior and Tijani Al Ameen, who even made the Super Eagles squad for the Unity Cup derby, have now moved on to clubs in Algeria and Zimbabwe. Think of how much experience and quality is lost by these departures.
Recruitment is corrupt. It’s “man-know-man” football. Players are sacked by cleaners. That doesn’t breed a professional environment. Agents bring their players, commissioners bring their cousins, chairmen bring their clients. Talent is optional.
Some coaches have turned selection into business. If you don’t pay, you don’t play. The best 11 never plays. The richest 11 plays.
We lack tactical preparation. African football has gone scientific. North Africans press with GPS data, video analysis, and set-piece coaches. We do “come out and play” and shout “ginger yourselves” from the bench.
Technically, we are still in 1999. First touch heavy, second touch tackle. Rivers United assistant coach Yemi after the game says there are no strikers in Nigeria. What a way to divert attention from himself and the coaching crew who couldn’t do the needful at home.
Most of our clubs are owned by State Governors. Football is treated as a political settlement. A Commissioner for Sports who has never run a kiosk is suddenly managing a club with a continental budget.
Football has left that era. It is now business. Al Ahly is a corporation. Raja Casablanca is a brand. Orlando Pirates is almost a brand of sponsors. We are still a Ministry Department.
No pre-season planning. We start buying players 2 weeks before CAF registration closes. The Fire Brigade Approach. Even the coach who qualified Shooting Stars was not good enough as he was sacked for Salisu Yusuf.
No continuity. A new Governor comes in, sacks the entire management, sacks the coach, sacks 20 players. How do you build a team like that?
We don’t respect away games. You can’t go to Tunisia to defend a 1-0 lead. In Africa, to qualify, you must go to score. North Africans see defense as invitation.
We don’t scout our opponents. They have 50 clips of us. We have zero of them.
Fitness levels are shameful. By minute 70 in North Africa, our players are cramping. Theirs are just starting.
We have no sports psychology. We fear the name “Esperance” and “Wydad” before the bus enters the stadium.
Infrastructure. You train on a bad pitch in Nigeria and expect to play well on a lush green modern hybrid grass in Algiers, Tunis or Morocco. Impossible.
Poor welfare kills motivation. Unpaid bonuses, 6 months salary owed, then you ask a man to die for the badge in Casablanca.
No youth system. Moroccan clubs have academies producing stars for Europe. We have trial grounds every pre-season.
This brings me to ENYIMBA. Why did they succeed where everyone fails?
In the early 2000s, Orji Uzor Kalu took politics OUT of football. He brought in professionals. He gave Felix Anyansi Agwu a free hand. He paid Enyimba players MORE than the national team. He kept Kadiri Ikhana and later Okey Emordi, bought the best legs in the country – Vincent Enyeama, Obinna Nwaneri, Joetex Frimpong – and did a 6-week close camping in Abia. They didn’t just prepare, they OVER-prepared.
That is how you win Africa back-to-back. Enyimba proved that Nigerian clubs CAN conquer the continent, but only when run like a professional club, not a political campaign office.
And let’s be honest with ourselves – in a fixture that looked like Enugu Rangers were going to have it easy against a Benin Republic club side, it took the luck of penalties to go through. Against a team from Algeria, you don’t win with luck.
Until we sack the political approach and hire professionals, pay professionals, and think like professionals, we will continue to crash out in the first round.
Rangers vs USM Alger and El Kanemi vs Raja Casablanca are not football matches. They are audits. And African football is about to audit us again. We hope and pray they prepare well and live up to the expectations.
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