Published: Wed, Jan 21, 2009“

IF LEMMY ISA is under-17, my grandfather is 30.” –– Timeless quote by Segun Odegbami, MON.

WHEN former national team captain and Complete Sports columnist Segun Odegbami wrote the above quote about 20 years ago in an article for Complete Football magazine, it caused a public uproar.

Lemmy Isa was the pint-sized but stocky and flamboyant goalkeeper of the Nigerian under-17 football team to the 2nd FIFA Under-17 tournament in 1987 in Canada. Nigeria, having won the inaugural edition of the competition two years before in China in 1985, had reached the final again in Canada, before losing to the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, now Russia in the main) in a cruel penalty shoot-out that caused the Nigerian boys to weep on the pitch.

I cannot remember the context of Odegbami’s article quite clearly now. But I do remember that he was trying to condemn what was then just emerging as a dishonest practice in Nigerian football where young players, often with the connivance of their coaches and football association officials, falsified their age records so that they could dubiOusly qualify to participate in competitions below their tr5e age categories. It became standard practiCe Ind very fashionable for Nigerian footballers to have two different sets of birth dates: one stating their true age a.d the other, their “football aGe.”

I remember that Odegbami was vilified then by a large section of the Nigerian football fraternity as unpatriotic, a “busy-body” and a spoil-sport. “Is he LEmmy Isa’s father? How could he question the boy’s age?” These were some of the questions posed at “Big Sheg.” Of course, “The Mathematical” had to beat a tactically calculated retreat. Most Nigerians did not care how victory was won. To them, the end justified the means.

Two years later at the 3rd edition of the FIFA Under-17 tournament in Scotland in 1989, the popular view amongst the Nigerian soccer fans appeared to have been upheld when a band of “boys” with heavy mustache from Saudi Arabia muscled the Nigerian team out of the tournament in a quarter final penalty shoot-out.

Ironically, Odegbami covered that tourney for Complete Football with Sunny Obazu-Ojeagbase and he (Odegbami) had to confess afterwards that the Saudi boys he saw made his “Lemmy Isa quote” sound like a joke. The Saudis went on to win the trophy that year by beating some evidently young Scottish school boys 2-0 in the final. But the whole world was not impressed. It was clearly a mismatch between men and boys. Complete Football captioned the story, “Saudis win the cup, but NOT the world.”

Following the “Saudi Embarrassment” at Scotland ‘89, world football governing body FIFA tried to deal with the problem of over-age players in its competitions limited by age to no avail. And in an apparent sign of helplessness, FIFA decided that the final determinant of a player’s true age shall be the record stated in his international passport. It has been a field day for cheats all over the world ever since, thereby casting genuine doubts over all age-grade FIFA competitions and their eventual winners.

Nigeria, winner of several age-grade tournaments over the years, has been a major “beneficiary” of the FIFA surrender. But it appears current Golden Eaglets coach Henry Nwosu is about to raise the “cheat-stakes” even higher when we host the 13th edition of the Under-17 World Cup later this year.

I was alarmed when I read in the papers that Nwosu had invited a staggering 67 fresh players from the Globacom Premier League as he struggles to build a “winning team” for the cadet championship in October. I am not the father to these players but I can bet my precious football boots that majority of them will NOT be under the age of 17.

Last week, I published a letter on this page from one Olusola from Ijora Badia in Lagos urging the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to compel Nwosu to search for his players at our secondary schools and the so-called football academies that dot the landscape.

Olusola suggested that hosting the under-17 tournament should not be about winning alone, but about building a future senior national team that will last and endure. I concurred with Olusola as I am sure a lot of conscientious Nigerian football fans would. But it appears that Nwosu and the NFF were not even reading or can not be bothered.
To the best of my knowledge, most Nigerian clubsides do not maintain youth teams and I cannot fathom where Nwosu wants their under-17 players to come from. Unless of course, he’s looking strictly for over-aged players so that he could “host to win” by hook or crook.

Admittedly, the problem here is not Nwosu himself, but a Nigerian football culture that suggests that winning is everything. If you win, you’re good, if you lose, you’re bad. Such culture puts tremendous pressure on the coaches to deliver by any means. But some of us are saying this should not necessarily be so.

I have related Odegbami’s story from the early days of the FIFA Under-17 tournament to underline the global nature of this endless age controversy. Yet each country can make a choice on the path they want to thread.

Some countries will choose to cheat their way to dubious glory while others will choose not to cheat even if it will end in defeat with dignity. Personally, I will recommend the path of honour for my country. If it leads to victory, better. And if it doesn’t, we can always win on another day.

It’s not too late to stop Henry Nwosu from parading men as boys for Nigeria when we host the world in October. The NFF and its technical committee must stop him now!

THE CHARADE IN RWANDA

ANYONE may label me as the unpatriotic element or “spoil-sport” of the current era. But I find it difficult to congratulate current Flying Eagles coach Ladan Bosso for the same reasons I have just enumerated in my main article above.

On Monday, Bosso led his Nigerian under-20 “boys” to beat their Egyptian rivals in their opening Group “B” match at the on-going African Youth Championship in Kigali, Rwanda.

Ordinarily, I should congratulate the team on their success, but each time I remember the faces of some of our players on television, I simply shudder about their true ages and the implication of this continuing grand deception for our football.

Nigeria is not the only guilty party, however. I also watched the Group “A” match between Cameroun and Ghana and it was even worse. Clearly, everyone is so desperate to win that decorum has been thrown to the dogs. It’s all one huge charade going on in Rwanda. But even that is no excuse for us to continue to cheat!

I think it’s about time that FIFA and the confederations particularly CAF (Africa), AFC (Asia) and Conmebol (South America) removed the age limits from these so-called “under-age” competitions. They should simply rename the “Under-17” as the Cadet Cup, the “under-20” as the Youth Cup and the “Under-23s” as Intermediate Teams, a step below the senior team. That way, we wouldn’t have to worry about the ages of players anymore and each country can decide on the criteria for selecting players for the various team categories.

Two years ago when the late coach Yemi Tella won the FIFA Under-17 World Cup for Nigeria for the third time, I expressed my reservation here in SOCCERTALK about the true ages of some of his players. Those players have resurfaced again in Bosso’s current team in Rwanda as under-20s. But while I support the transition wholeheartedly, I will not to wait until they win or lose the trophy before repeating what I think about their credibility.

To borrow Odegbami’s timeless quote, if some of the players I am seeing in Rwanda are under-20, my grandfather is 30!

NPL’S HOUSE OF FOOTBALL

THE Nigeria Premier League (NPL) gave us something to cheer about a couple of weeks back with the formal announcement of their acquisition of a permanent secretariat building at Garki 2 in Abuja. Just four years after former sports minister Col. Musa Mohammed (rtd) granted the Nigeria Football League (NFL now NPL) full autonomy to run its affairs independent of the Nigeria Football Association (now Nigeria Football Federation), the league board has become a landlord in Abuja while its older, “superior supervisor” is still a tenant at the Glass House!

I do not intend to make any jest of the NFF, lest I am accused of fanning embers of jealousy between it and it’s “surbodinate affiliate.” But it is inevitable that we must compare how an NFL board being run with a private sector mentality has been able to achieve a lasting legacy in the form of a property of its own; while an NFF run with government civil service mentality continues to “blow” all its subvention on international trips to competitions and estacodes for executive committee members, without thinking about tomorrow.

The NFL has its own problems with corrupt and greedy officials, but the board chairman Chief Oyuki Obaseki deserves a big pat on the back for still being able to set aside enough funds from their Globacom sponsorship money to acquire a secretariat.

I have not seen the new secretariat building but I am reliably informed that it cost the NPL a tidy N200 million to buy out. I am also told that the complex has enough rooms to accommodate NPL officials visiting Abuja for one meeting or the other, thereby saving the NPL the huge hotel bills normally incurred when the board members come to town. And I am told that the official commissioning will hold very soon. Whenever that will be, I hope to be there.

The only project of note that the NFF can boast of in Abuja is the FIFA-assisted “Goal Project” building which serves as a training camp for select national teams. If the proposed “house-warming” by the NPL does not ginger the NFF to start making plans to pack out of their crumbling Glass House, nothing will!

Meanwhile, Chief Obaseki must be careful not allow his board members to turn the new secretariat into their permanent residences! Now that its “our house,” there will be a tendency for some board members to over-stay in Abuja, even commandeering some of the rooms for their personal use permanently. Obaseki would need to set up some rules to avoid this possibility. No one should be allowed to abuse any privileges at the League House!

GLO CAF AWARDS 2008

I WAS at the Mike Adenuga Towers, headquarters of League sponsors Globacom in Lagos last week for the unveiling of the final short-list of candidates for the 2008 Globacom CAF African Football of the Year award.

I had to leave before the list was announced because the programme started behind schedule. But there were no surprises as Egypt’s duo of Amir Zaki and Mohammed Aboutrika as well as Togo’s Sheyi Emmanuel Adebayour were short-listed while Ghana’s Michael Essien and Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba dropped out of the race. Now the countdown has begun for the final selection in Lagos next month.

If all the signals I’m getting so far are anything to go by, Aboutrika will emerge as the first Africa-based African Football of the Year since Morocco’s Mohammed Timoumi, playing for FAR Rabat, won it 24 years ago in 1985.

In the intervening years, the prize has been won consistently by players based outside of the continent, particularly Europe. Doutless, Aboutrika, winner of the Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt and winner of the CAF Champions League with Al-Ahly both in 2008 will be a deserving winner indeed.

If the prize winner is predictable, not so the award ceremony itself. In the past few years, the event has been dogged by controversy as the organizers turned it into a virtual political rally of sorts. I hope that will not be the case this year in Lagos and I hope my friends Globacom are reading this.

I understand that Globacom has commercial interests for sponsoring the Glo CAF awards which are promoted by the recognitions given to politicians. But surely, we can have a fine balance without distorting the sporting character of the event.

Meanwhile, the last edition held in Togo was quite thrilling in the area of entertainment and I still want to thank Globacom for sponsoring me to Lome for what was indeed an enthralling night. I look forward to an equally entertaining occasion in Lagos, offering a good mix of fun and football while cutting back heavily on the politics!