LIKE a jigsaw puzzle everything is coming together! I am a product of Academicals and Collegiate sports. In my days everyone got into sports from an organised grassroots system. In Jos, where I grew up, even the neighbourhood street football games were well established. So, we all rose from the streets games and through the schools system. I played football in my primary school. Let me take a short break and tell you about it.St. Theresas Boys School, Jos, had only one football field. During break all the classes played separate matches at the same time between each other on that single field. It was the craziest thing imaginable. The sight of the game would make a great tourism spectacle. You need to see it to believe it. I dont recall how we made out our own particular ball with over a hundred children running crazily around trying to shoot even once at goal in that cacophony of humanity.During the 30 minutes duration of the game any one particular player would be very lucky to get to kick the ball twice! Once was a huge success most of the time. The rest of the time was spent chasing after the balls that flew in the air from one end of the field to the other.In that sea of children buzzing around like bees the balls had to be kicked almost permanently in the air, the bare undulating, hard-baked earth making it unreasonable to do otherwise. There was no space on terra firma, almost every inch of it was filled with running feet dodging and weaving to avoid collision with each other, even as all eyes peered skywards riveted on flying balls.I dont know how we did it, but it was great fun and a daily ritual. I also do not know how that impacted on our football development but I know that St. Theresas Boys school produced quite a number of the best football players of that and several generations after me, several of whom went on to become local, national and even international stars - Godwin Ogbueze, Ismaila Mabo, Tijani Salisu, Kabiru Nakande, Emmanuel Egede, the Atuegbu brothers (Mathew, Andrew, Alloysius and Nicholas), and so on and so forth.Secondary school sports was better much organised. My school, St. Murumba College, had two standard and well-grassed football fields. For the five years of my student days there I played for the schools football team and was also involved in table tennis and some track and field athletics.I was invited in my final year to the Benue Plateau State Football academicals. The school through the decades has produced players that became truly international superstars. Mathew Atuegbu, Patrick Mancha, Ben Akwuegbu, Mikel Obi, and many others, who played for Nigerias senior national team.Beyond secondary school, when I moved to Ibadan I became very actively involved in football at Collegiate level playing in the NATS and NIPOGA Games representing the Polytechnic Ibadan.As the Student Union Director of Sports in my final year, I was part of the conceptualisation and hosting of the very first NIPOGA Games in Ibadan. Two years prior to my graduation I was invited to the national team, the Green Eagles. I waited until I graduated in 1976, however, before I fully committed myself to playing full time for Shooting Stars FC and for Nigeria. My entire career in football prior to my Green Eagles years I played most of my football whilst within an academic institution or environment.The schools provide the discipline, the established structures, the authenticity and credibility required to excel. Development can be measured. Cheating and age falsification will be eliminated. Data on all sportspersons can be kept properly for documentation. The best players will emerge from a deep well of talented youths in a ceaseless stream and will be trained to become a veritable source of players for the national teams. When that starts to happen in Nigerian football, the rest of Africa must beware! Within a few years Nigeria would be untouchable in African Sports (particularly football) and one of the best in the world.Thats what the Nigerian government has decided to do after several years of agitation by the people and prevarication on its side. It has decided to take the first step in an eventual total return of sports development through the grassroots.Three weeks ago, the Sports Minister revved school sports back to life with the plan to organise national academicals competitions. The move is heavily backed by Mr. President himself.Thus was born the Nigeria Academicals Sports Committee (NASCOM). Introduced into the body are representatives of all key constituencies and stakeholders in sports development and challenged them to do what Napoleon could not do! NASCOM has since gone to work preparing an implementation plan and strategy.I believe it is not too early to warn the rest of Africa to beware of the sports tsunami that is about to be unleashed from the bowels of the continents rumbling giant!Why I Will Not Support Blatter To Return!Mr. Sepp Blatter wants to contest for the fourth time for the Presidency of FIFA. He has already started his global campaign. I do not have a vote in the elections so, any way which way what I feel about his ambition would really not matter. What I have is my humble and harmless say, and that is what I intend to exercise. I hope my voice will be worthy of some consideration in the debates that are bound to start very soon all over the world.I like the man. I appreciate his work in football and what he did to bring the World Cup to Africa. Looking into the future, however, I am unconvinced that he is the one that can take football to the next essential level. Thats why, unfortunately, I will openly not support his ambition to return again as FIFA president when his term expires next year.I believe he has arrived at the plateau of his capacity to make a positive difference to the game into the future. There are many reasons for my present position, but I shall only state one here and share the others with you next week.I read a news report on the Internet this week. This is it unedited:The ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) is preparing to table a bid for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, according to the Foreign Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore.The AFF, which represents the Association of South East Asian nations, is hoping that the tournament could be spread across a number of countries to ease the financial burden on any individual territory. Although FIFA is thought to favour bids from individual countries rather than joint bids, Argentina and Uruguay have already registered an interest in linking up to stage the centenary World Cup in 2030.The AFFs 11 nations have agreed to create a committee to research and promote their bid, according to Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman. It will be a unifying factor for the ASEAN community if we could host the World Cup, he told the Bernama news agency after a meeting of the regions politicians.Singapore Foreign Minister, George Yeo, told the Today newspaper: We thought if we made a joint bid, if we share facilities, then its a bearable cost. ASEAN, as a whole, will be a big country like Brazil or the United States, and if they could host it so can we. The report interested me immediately. Recall my effort some eight years ago to sell the idea of a joint hosting arrangement for three or four neighbouring West African countries led by Nigeria to host the global event of 2010 by providing venues, reducing the cost to Nigeria and spreading the benefits of the most glamourous championship in the world to other needy African countries.I had felt that hosting the World Cup is being turned into a championship reserved for the rich countries only where the rich get richer by hosting and deriving all the benefits that come with hosting the most prestigious and lucrative championships in the world. When I mooted the idea of a World Cup tournament along the West African coast stretching from Cameroon to Accra, an area only a fraction of the size of Brazil, or even the USA, many Nigerians scuffed and scorned at the ridiculousness of even the thought. Since then, however, we continue to be confronted more and more by countries in the Third World waking up to the inevitability of a joint hosting bid for the experience and benefits of hosting the championship that come with it to be spread around more countries in the FIFA family. Using the present format too many countries in the Third World would NEVER even dream of experiencing the World Cup as hosts. A joint bid gives them hope and opportunity.What the South East Asians have now done is what Africa, numerically more powerful than the AFF, should have done - set up a committee to research into the feasibility and viability after presenting a joint bid before condemning it outright without giving it any thought.AFF have rekindled the idea again. Sepp was the person who singlehandedly discouraged discussion and debate on the idea eight years ago. It is an Asian that is contesting against him next year. He will buy the idea of joint hosting without too much hassle. For that reason, amongst several others, I shall cast my ineligible vote for Bin Hamman.Having said that, it is time for CAF to wake up to its responsibility and research this approach by a few African countries to jointly present a bid that would benefit more African countries than one when the championship rotates once again to the continent. I can start to dream again - Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria hosting the World Cup!It was once unacceptable and inconceivable, now it can be dreamt of and may actually become a reality in the not too distant future! A Nigerian World Cup along the West Coast with a few neighbouring African countries Why not It wont cost CAF anything to set up a committee to research the possibility and feasibility! Thats why I shall not join the party seeking to extend authoritarian rule of world football by returning Blatter once again for the Presidency of FIFA!olusegunodegbami@hotmail.com
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