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| Super Falcons: Africa's Best |
On Tuesday, my timeline on twitter was flooded with
the hashtag #savetheNWFL (Nigeria Women Football League in case you are wondering).A
brilliant way to highlight the deficiencies that had stalled the growth of the
league in Nigeria. As much as the women national team, the super falcons has
won the Africa Women championship a record of 9 times, appeared in the Olympic
games and 7 times in the world cup, the state of the league has been in
shambles. Loads of teams are viable, they can t pay salaries of pay salaries of
their players and then honouring matches is even out of the questions. Most of
the clubs are government owned and the economic crunch makes it almost
impossible to properly fund the clubs. Even the ones owned by private
individuals look more concerned about how to make money out of selling their
best players than really providing for the club.
The major reason we are where we are is simple: a
lack of funds. A lot of my female colleagues and even administrations I have
spoken to have called for an independent body to run to women’s league just like the league management company
does for the male counterpart. And the belief is that the independent body to
run to the women’s league. But here’s the hard truth: the LMC came into
existence in the first place because there was no money in the league and not
the other way round. Don’t get me wrong, the
LMC has in the last couple of
years helped in expanding the scope of the men’s league financially culminating
of course with Tuesday’s signing of an MOU with the Spanish La-Liga . But the
independent management company set up by the Nigeria football Federation which
metamorphosed into the LMC was set up in the first place as a result of
imbroglio on how to deal with sponsorship funds from former sponsors, Globacom.
So in essence, it might be a bit of an illusion to just think an independent
body will help attract funds or sponsorship to the league.
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| Women Teams In Action |
But an independent body sure look like it is needed
to properly structure the women league. A situation where the club owners say
one thing and do another doesn’t bode well for the development of the league.
Last week, the congress of the NWFL took place and certain teams who were
supposed to be relegated have now been brought back to be part of a new league
season. Some teams are already crying foul and saying this is anomaly. Question
then, is how do you expect would-be sponsors to take you serious when there is
a serious organizational problem?
More so, it’s time to start the hard question.
Reportedly, FIFA gives 1 million dollars t its members associations yearly
since 2000. About 10 percent of that fund is supposed to be women football
development, this is 2016, and so simple arithmetic suggests 1.6 million
dollars should have been sunk into women football development. The state of
women football in the country doesn’t look like one that has had 1.6 million
dollars injected into it. I’ve seen a lot of women journalists come out on
social media to vent their anger. Some have even accused their male
counterparts of not doing enough for women game almost turning it into a
feminism war. Point is this ain't a gender battle. It’s time all of us, women journalist
included, ask the hard truth about where the supposed grant for women football
development goes to.
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| Dejected Faces? |
It’s high time we all did what is right and like
Tuesdays hashtag #SaveTheNWFL.
-This piece first appeared as a column Sixth Sense on Port Harcourt based newspaper Independent Monitor on Thursday April 28th 2016.
CREDITS
Super Falcons Pic courtesy www.olisa.tv
Women In Action Pic courtesy www.allnigeriasoccer.com
Dejected Look Pic courtesy www.nairaland.com
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