FOOTBALL: Discontentment Within NFF As PFAN Calls For “Possessing Our Possession (1)”

 

PEGASUS REPORTERS| JULY 29, 2021

Over the years there have been calls for the Nigerian Football Federation to allow professional footballers represented by the Professional Footballers Association Of Nigeria, (PFAN) to manage a game they can be participant-observers. However, It appears that the reliance on football club owners and non-professional footballer-administrators is the norm that the real professional is now asking to possess. 

A press statement by the Management of PFAN,  signed by Comrade Austin Popo, PFAN BOT Secretary & Member, PFAN TASK FORCE Project 2022, explains the grievances of the professional body. It says in clear terms why professionals footballers must be in charge. It’s titled Possessing Our Possession.

Possessing Our Possession (1)

The Core message or objective of the Professional Footballers Association of Nigeria (PFAN) Task Force, Project 2022 is all about Possessing our Possession. We have finally arrived in our Mount Zion, where we have come to deliver ourselves and possess our possession. The question you may likely want to ask, is Football truly the possession of Footballers?

Going by the Collins dictionary definition ” A footballer is a person who plays Football, especially as a professional” please take note of the word ” Professional”. Who then is a professional? A professional is anyone who earns their living from performing an activity that requires a certain level of education, skills or training

In other words, a footballer is a Football Professional who does not only play football to earn a living but a person who perform every activity around and about football to earn a living. What are the activities around football apart from playing? Just to men a few, Coaching, Officiating, Football Administration, Sports medicine, Sports Law, etc. It is no longer secret that we have a good number Ex Footballers who are trained and highly proficient in the disciplines mentioned above and many others

WHY DO WE WANT TO POSSESS OUR POSSESSION

Just as mentioned in the introductory page of the four points demand by the PFAN Task Force Project 2022, It is Crystal clear even to a blind Person that Football Administration in Nigeria has nosedived, without any form or void laced with myriads of flaws and impediments that have made football development stunted for too long. That Nigeria Footballers past and present have been put in the remotest part of Football administration consciously by the prevailing structure and system in Nigeria for the past six decades is a major reason we are clamouring to possess our possession.

Over the years the attitude and disposition of those we have left our lives and destinies to manage as football administrators at all levels of the game in Nigeria have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the fundamental challenges or pitfalls associated with Professional Football, which are not actually localised challenges, but global in nature but has received solutions from other climes through proper structures and inbuilt mechanism as Shock absorbers to take care of both current and former players. Let me highlight or mention three distinct pitfalls to drive home the point am trying to make.

1 The truth remains that a Professional Footballer has a short playing career life span and early retirement age of about 35 yrs than any other Professional, be it banker, lawyer, civil servants, etc. With a huge gap in the number of years, he or she has to cover before he /she finally leaves the surface of the earth

2 The second pitfall is that Football has the power to remove any quality or talented player from the mainstream of education. This no doubt is one of the biggest challenges we face at retirement as we have no other alternative to fall back on after retirement from active Football. as only a small fraction usually steps into a higher level of the game.

3 Thirdly, is that Football is a high-risk Performance Job that exposes a player to pick up an injury that can terminate his or her career unceremoniously within 90 minutes of football.

We have been governed by a set of Football Administrators who don’t have respect for global Football rules and regulations as pertaining to Football governance and Administration and the welfare of Footballers, through systematic manipulation of the Football statutes in ensuring that the real actors of the game are perpetually kept in slavery in an industry that belongs to them.

For instance, looking at the statutes of the NFF 2010 which is currently being used as the supreme law of football governance in the country clearly reveals the lopsided Composition of members of the NFF Congress in favour of the States Football Associations. ( see article 27: 1 ( a-h) The total number of delegates of the NFF with voting rights is 44 which spread across 5 members of the NFF, namely
1 States Football Associations,
2 The leagues’ Football Clubs
3 The Coaches Association
4 The Footballers Association
5 The Referees Association

The above are the 5 distinctive members of the NFF who are of equal status as members of the NFF. Unfortunately over the years, our Football Administrators have continuously manipulated the statutes by allocating to themselves under the platform of the State FA’s a large chunk of the voting rights or slots of 37 votes, while the other 4 members of the NFF are left with 7 votes of 1 each to Players, Coaches and Referees Associations and balance of 4 to the leagues, and not even the clubs. Under such circumstances, you can now know why the states Football Associations are usually the beautiful brides’ sort after during the election of Board members of the NFF, which to a large extend has continued to promote corruption, electoral fraud, vote-buying and mediocrity, while excellence, forthrightness and transparency is sidelined in the industry.

This lopsided Composition of the NFF Congress must be reversed to provide a level playing ground for all participating members of the congress in exercising their voting rights to choose those to manage their affairs in the Board of Nigeria henceforth beginning from the year 2022.

Furthermore, there is no statutory allocations for the most important constituency, the Footballers in the Board of the NFF as presently constituted. Several attempts in the past by the players to address this injustice following article Article 30: 1 – 6 of the NFF statutes have never materialised or yielded any positive results, because of the lopsidedness of the Congress dominated by the State FA’s. This is the route or process, the PFAN Task Force Project 2022 must surely avoid if we hope to reverse the current ugly trend that has continued to push the owners of the game to the background. then we must take a new approach

More often than not the hijackers of the game are usually quick to refer us to personalities that administer Football at global levels the majority of them are not core or Frontline Footballers, so why must we advocate or clamour for a total take over of the game. The answer to their query is simple. The same high profile Football Administrators they make reference has never disappointed in making players development and welfare top priority. Even in Nigeria before the advent of the current regime of Football Administrators in Nigeria led by the NFF President, our Football has never been in this pitiable conditions we find ourselves hence the agitation to take over was never envisaged. But not so any longer. To be continued in part two.

Comrade Austin Popo
PFAN BOT Secretary and member
PFAN TASK FORCE Project 2022

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