For Nigerians, football is not just a sport; it is a way of life. It is more than a recreational activity. It is a cord of unity that binds millions of people from different tribes together. It is a thread with which hundreds of heterogeneous groups are woven into a colourful and beautiful filigree
Last night, many Nigerians went to bed with pent-up anger, sadness, frustration and despondency as the harsh reality of their country missing out on a second consecutive World Cup dawned on them. The democratic republic of Congo beat the Super Eagles 4-3 on penalties to qualify for the intercontinental play-off to reach the finals of the 2026 World Cup jointly hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States. A troubling cloud of despair and cold deja vu enveloped the nation the moment the Congolese player slotted his penalty kick past a hapless Nwabali after Ajayi had missed.
As painful and deflating as the loss to the Congolese is, it was not unexpected. The performance of the team yesterday was the summation of how we have fared in this World Cup Qualifiers campaign which is actually why we’ve found ourselves trying to qualify for the mundial via the play-offs when we should ordinarily have clinched the automatic ticket in the group stage where we played against low-ranking nations like Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Benin Republic. In fact, the assertion of some cynics, and they are in their millions, is that we probably don’t deserve to be at the World Cup if we could not top a group filled with small-time football nations.
Our inability to qualify for the World Cup for the second time in a row is not a sideshow or one-off incident that can be overlooked or a blip that can be ignored. It is a metaphor for the parlous, precarious and unsettling state of the nation and a general decline in the quality of leadership and governance. For far too long we’ve somewhat achieved a great deal of success without putting in the commensurate shift and work needed to achieve this success. This has made us disturbingly complacent and content with mediocrity and stagnation. For us to move from where we are now to where we should be or where we ought to be, there needs to be a comprehensive overhaul of not just the management of our football and its entire value chain but also our sport generally.
Gone are the days when our league was not just one of the best on the continent but in the world. Our football clubs rubbed shoulders with other top teams in Europe. However, years of mismanagement, corruption and impunity have left a once vibrant, organised, competitive, lucrative and successful football league in shambles and dishevelment. These days, many of the stadium football lovers who go to support their club on matchdays have fallen into disrepair and become dilapidated after years of neglect. Sane, levelheaded, cultured and refined fans have been replaced by vicious, truculent, uncultured and bloodthirsty supporters who are always ready to disrupt matches and unleash violence if things don’t go the way of their team.
Aside from the uninspiring and atrocious style of football played in the league, League football matches are now tinged with trepidation and a sense of foreboding. Smaller countries with smaller populations and resources are doing better than us in football. While we have regressed, countries that were deemed inconsequential when it comes to African football have all progressed tremendously and left us behind. The likes of Ghana have a better league than Nigeria. DR Congo has a better league. Tanzania has a better league. Kenya has a better league. Zambia has a better league. There’s no point even mentioning Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Yet only Morocco, Tunisia, and Cameroon have been to more World Cups than Nigeria. Only Egypt, Cameroon and Ghana have won more AFCONS.
While it is imperative to address the challenges facing our local league as part of an effort to revamp and restructure our football system, we must not forget the elephant in the room: the Nigerian football federation. Every blame for not qualifying for the World Cup for the second time in a row must go on the NFF. The organisation appears to have ditched its primary responsibility of providing the needed support for our football teams across all levels and ensuring that the conditions are right for us to perform excellently and triumph in any football tournament. It has largely become an entity perennially embroiled in money-related scandals and controversies.
A country like Nigeria, a nation that was a football powerhouse a little over a decade ago, missing the World Cup for a second consecutive time is disgraceful, unacceptable and unforgivable. Heads must roll. The federal government must call the bluff of FIFA and step in to salvage what is left of our slumbering giant. For far too long, the football administrators in this country have been shielded from needed scrutiny and probes owing to an impeding FIFA rule that bars the government from meddling in the affairs and activities of its national football association.
However, the NFF has abused this rule as they have repeatedly engaged in actions that not only undermine the growth of football in Nigeria but also sabotage the careers of Nigerian players in their prime. The government will have to set aside the FIFA law and step in to wield the big stick and restore some normalcy and sanity in the organisation. International law should simply not be allowed to stand in the way of national reckoning and positive radical changes. Nigerians want to see swift and far-reaching changes in the way the body tasked with running the nation’s most important football organisation is managed. Many believe only the government can take the bold, decisive and audacious steps to bring about the overhaul and changes they yearn for because to expect such changes from the very men who have brought us to where we are now is to expect a famished lion to treat its prey nicely and not devour it.
For Nigerians, football is not just a sport; it is a way of life. It is more than a recreational activity. It is a cord of unity that binds millions of people from different tribes together. It is a thread with which hundreds of heterogeneous groups are woven into a colourful and beautiful filigree. It is a tool of national cohesion. We’ve allowed this precious and important sport to deteriorate abysmally, we’ve left it in the hands of corrupt and unscrupulous charlatans masquerading as knowledgeable, astute and pragmatic administrators. Time to do away with them. We can no longer pretend we don’t know how bad the situation is, we can no longer continue papering over cracks, and we can no longer hope things somehow take a life of their own and course correct. We must act with urgency, with purpose and above all with determination and political will to get it right.
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