Dear President Gianni Infantino,
Congratulations on a most exciting World Cup. Russia were good hosts; France are the world champions in football; Croatia, the heroes; Africa – its worst outing in many many years. Notice how our continent is worse than single nations sir! We lick our wounds and pray for a better outing in Qatar 2022. But, unless we change our ways, go to work now and fit the right pegs in place, there may not be much a difference. Hence, I write to you because you are best positioned to help us the most – Nigeria as much as Africa.
Gianni, your actions portray a man who loves Nigeria (and Africa). On a recent visit in February, you are quoted as having said: “I was told that in Nigeria football is passion, but it is a lie because it is more than that. In Nigeria I was told that football is love, but it is a lie it is more than that. In Nigeria, I was told that football is a religion, but it is a lie. It is more than that. In Nigeria, football is life.”
To buoy this life passion, you have granted Africa nine slots in a format that will allow 48 teams come 2026, (from the current 32 team format). Will this help Africa if FIFA is seen as being Football Is not For Africa? If African teams place fewer qualifying games, will they not be weaker than the current poor assemblages? When they get to the finals and meet teams that have far better individual and collective talents – won’t we return to the scandalous score-lines of yore?
What must be done to make African teams competitive and not just fashion winners and numbers? When would FIFA open its ‘blind eye’ to the financial cesspools in African football? When would FIFA see that Africa’s challenges require foundation level solutions?
Mr. President, you came into power on the anti-corruption clean-up-the-Augean-stable platform, if am correct. You were an insider in the developments that followed when a few eyes peeped into FIFA’s accounts and finances, and oh la la! You rode in on the wave of the outrage that followed. The world celebrated you – the courageous Swiss-Italian soccer administrator – to bring in fresh visions to world football. One of the few younger ‘turks’ who battled with you against then larger-than-life President Sepp Blatter was Melvin Amaju Pinnick. The loyal man that you are, it is most likely you will stand by him through thick and thin – understandably so. However, for the sake of our football, I believe you can get the two factions to work together, one way or the other. Already, our league resumption has been postponed…and only problems loom.
More fundamentally sir, what was done for global football administration, you must do for African football – clean it up, that is. Irrespective of whose ox is gored. History will celebrate you if you can see the individuals through the prisms of the continent’s progress. Not the other way. What is best for Africa to catch up (or at least reduce the gap) with Europe and South America will augur best for global football: Greater competition, excitement, and income.
Secondly, you must enable African football to develop along its own uniqueness and trajectories. In other words, encourage that continental flair that saw Cameroun and Senegal to the quarter-finals. The unique African combo: the energy, the directness, the dance, the ‘naturalness’ and the heart that bespeaks Africana.
While we, in our traditional communal spirit, welcome all and sundry, we cannot lose our essence again – as we did the first civilization. Is it in our long term interest to jettison playing to our strength in favour of say, tiki taka? I doubt. Common sense shows we cannot be more Spanish than the Spaniards. This wholesale importation of Spanish football through the FC Barcelona academy, or indeed any other cannot augur well for Africa, or global football.
Third, you need to save football from African governments. They don’t understand the economics. They do not know what to do with it beyond shallow and temporary political gains. In reality, it is a burden on their lean finances (though another avenue for padded budgets and looting). This is where you and FIFA can come in. Punishing Federations when governments interfere mean little or nothing to the politicians. Football, it is, that suffers.
Show them the money and they will jump. Show them the money, help them build the structures for local leagues, but tie financial aid to privatization of football and see how far they will jump. Show them how much they can save by allowing football fend for itself, show them how much Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and constant foreign exchange can flow through players in foreign leagues. Of course, some of the politicians will corner the juice for themselves but hey, isn’t that the same story in telecoms, oil and gas, banking and finance, and any other sector that makes money in Africa?
Mr. President sir, let me close by saying: you stand at history’s cusp. Your leadership can assist the world’s youngest continent make the quantum leap that reduces its poverty levels through football. Please assist us.
Yours sincerely,
Anthony Ajero.
Association footballer on Lagos streets (like many Nigerian boys). Liverpool and Real Madrid supporter.
