Season 2015

A very warm 2015 to everyone and I sin cerely pray and believe that this year would be a greater sporting year for Nigeria as we try to bury the ghost of 2014 in our sports as we look forward to a glorious year and laying a stronger foundation for major international tournaments especially the All Africa Games and The Olympics next year.

As the year starts with a beehive of political activities leading up to the general elections in the next one month, Nigerian sports in 2015 is expected to have a stronger and fresher impetus in its development as we believe that the various sporting federations would have charted new courses to ensure that the glory days are back again to the sporting map of the country.

In the next few days, precisely this weekend, the Africa Cup of Nations will begin in Equatorial Guinea without the defending champions Nigeria who failed to make it to Africa’s highest and biggest football tournament.

Another lost opportunity by the present breed of professionals to showcase their talents  and perhaps win a back to back victory now a mirage.

The Eagles, Nigeria’s biggest brand are presently on a downward trend, not necessarily with the quality of players in the senior national team, but the very poor technical input by the embattled Chief Coach of the team, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi who has lost the command of his dressing room and above all, has lost the confidence of Nigerians  to manage the team.

The downward trend has also affected the Eagles rating on its monthly ranking and the team on the road to its re-discovery will play some friendly matches with Cote d’Ivoire and others in Abu Dhabi and Dubai as warm up matches for the Nations Cup. This will be mainly Team B comprising a wholly home based squad under the watchful eyes of Daniel Amokachi the Assistant Coach of the team.

The Super Eagles crises is caused by the sit tight attitude of its coach, Stephen Keshi who despite as good as his last match as a failure on the job, has sat tight refusing to vacate a job his employers have wittingly refused to re-validate believing in the powers in the corridors of the Presidency to sustain him on the saddle against the backlash and  rejection by more than 170 million Nigerians eagerly waiting for him to throw in the towel.

The NFF under Amaju Pinnick should please NOT renew Keshi’s contract no matter how much pressure they must be at the moment otherwise, the current slide may just be the beginning of the consistent disasters that awaits us if Keshi still remains as the gaffer of the senior national team.

We have seen enough of Keshi and what he has to offer and we must appeal to our power brokers and top politicians in Abuja that there is an urgent need for the NFF to begin a whole new process of building a new national team and the insistence of Keshi to sit tight on the job he has failed to deliver may just be delaying the programmes of the Pinnick led board.

Keshi should be sent on a FIFA graded course for up to six months to a yaer to improve his technical skills in the beautiful game , be attached to a team to understudy modern football techniques and see if there is any extent, he can be of any useful role in developing the game.

The several calls by prominent football stakeholders and ex-internationals like Garba Lawal, Christian Chukwu,  Amodu Shuaibu, Sunday Oliseh, Kodjo Williams,  Etim Esin, Austin Okocha, Adegboye Onigbinde among others just to mention a few that Keshi quits his present role bemoans the sounds of danger hanging upon Nigeria’s football at the moment.

For a man that has served as the longest serving captain of the senior national team to manipulate a system and derail the beautiful game shows the level of desperation Keshi and his sponsors behind the scene have plotted to plunge our football on the dungeons of more nightmare on the already devastated hearts on Nigerians.

In 2015, the Dream Team led by Coach Samson Siasia will be the focus in producing the new generation of senior national team players as we expect him on a once familiar turf to qualify the team for the Olympics next year and lead us to a gold medal podium success.

Already, The Dream Team under Siasia is making fantastic progress and the team is expected to begin their final camping exercise ahead of the tough qualifiers for the games next summer.

The same team will feature for the All Africa Games even as the nation’s Under 17 and 20 teams consolidate on their preparations for the African Championships in the cadre events later in the year. 

All this can  be achieved with the support of the present NFF whom we must commend for their utmost commitment to re-focus our football as it remains Nigeria’s strongest focal point of national unity.

The Nigerian League in 2015 will also be in focus as we expect the League Management Board to ensure that the set standards for clubs are upheld in a season expected to usher more glamour to the game on the domestic league.
We expect a league where the different clubsides at all categories of the league will be able to implement its financial commitment to players, improve players welfare, improve security, improve funds generation, expand their marketing and revenue bases and also ensure the reality of going public on the Nigerian Stock Exchange especially the bigger branded and well exposed clubs.

We expect more of the coverage of matches from the different venues which could be spread to Saturdays and Sundays across different venues in the country thereby sustaining the passion and the tempo on the local scene.
The 2015 season for Nigerian sports will witness one of the biggest events on the country’s sporting calendar with the National Sports Festival scheduled to start from April 9, 2015 from the Paradise City of Calabar in Cross River State after initial postponements due to the political season.

Though it is late to use the National Sports Festival to prepare for the Olympics next summer, it must be another platform for the National Sports Commission and the different sporting federations to begin their programmes with sincerity ahead of the next four years in getting it right for our budding younger athletes to be world champions in 2020.

This National Sports Festival will perhaps set new standards for new records to be broken and coming back home, I believe Team AkwaIbom which has consistently been in the top ten at the games will focus on making history as a parting gift for our sports loving Governor, Godswill Akpabio as he bids the state farewell after the games.

The National Sports Festival is the country’s blueprint to develop our sports and we must focus on ensuring that we feature only athletes that are duly eligible for the games and avoid poaching schemes that would bring the games into disrepute, shame and needless controversies.

We must follow the successes of the National Youth Games, Secondary School Games initiated by the Bolaji Abdulahi administration of sports obviously our best in a long time to discover younger grassroots talents  that would change the stagnant story of our present sports especially in our traditional strongholds of track and field, boxing, weight lifting, wrestling and table tennis.

We are also set to witness a lot of school sports and we must encourage the Sports Commission to enlist seasoned coaches to move around different zones to scout for talents and groom them as future champions on the global map of sporting excellence.

This year obviously is a breeding ground and a new beginning for most of the associations in the Sports Commission. The emphasis all through is how successful whatever plan made has yielded any meaningful impact at events we feature not necessarily the laurels at the moment. We must have a sustained plan to consolidate on the future as we believe the 2015 sporting season would be a good year to re-position of sports.

We can only pray we have a good season, but starting well remains a significant step to building a fruitful year .Only time will tell. Happy New Year.