By Daily Sports on April 22, 2019

If you read last’s week write-up on this page, you must have seen it was the best selling since this year because as at the time of putting this page to bed, it had already recorded 28,000 plus visitors or readers. I must also confess that it was an admixture of knocks and cheers among my dear readers. For instance, my Oga and Publisher of The Difference, a Pan-African newspaper, Richard Mamah, led the pack. Thank you, my dear Sir. However, with all honesty, I enjoyed your expressions and they will make the round leather game grow to our expectations and in a solid steady state too. Thank you all!

It was a good copy and readers’ exchanges, comments and SMS were even. It is instructive to note here also that none used dirty or foul language against another including the writer too. The readers played to rule, none called me but rather sent SMS. I remain indebted to my lovely readers who of course are the reason why this page exists in the first place including the Daily Sports online portal. We are here not only to serve you but also to honour your dictates and caprices as long as it is not repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience. Thanks for being there!!

Felix Owolabi, Ph.D., needs not much introduction in the Nigerian football circle as he played the game beautifully at the club side and national team level when self-sacrifice was the in-thing. He is one of the 1980 Class of the Eagles that won Nigeria’s first ever Africa Cup of Nations football summit finals held in Lagos. He was conferred with a National Honour of Member of the Order of the Niger (MON) alongside his teammates and also given a house at Festac Town of Lagos State by late President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari.

He played from the left wing of the field and his power runs, displays, tactical distribution, dribbles, in-wings from the left and experience prompted late ace radio commentator, Earnest Okonkwo to nickname him Owoblow which most of the fans in that generation knew much more than his real names. Let me also say here that Felix Owolabi after his football career that spanned decades went back to the classroom and obtained a Ph.D. He is not one for much words hence you don’t see him seeking notice like some of his teammates that even go about to speak at the drop of hat as in the notice me syndrome and what the stomach will eat quest.

Let me also point out here that Dr. Owolabi does not speak just for the fun of it which is why anytime he does, his contribution carries weight and has the ears of both those that matter in and outside the industry. Let me be honest with you that he does not carry airs around himself. He still looks ordinary. For instance, the other day before his interview with The Guardian, I ran into him at the Liberty Stadium area of Ibadan and I screamed, Owoblow! He quickly turned and we warmly greeted and exchanged pleasantries.

He is not a noise maker either.  He was a key member of the good old days IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan and also of the then Green Eagles. Those that were of my generation would bear me witness that on a good day, a pair of Owolabi and Odegbami was a nightmare for opponents.

Without any prejudice, his kind ought to be in the calculations of the NFF but because he does not lobby or position himself as an unemployed image maker of the NFF or back the Football house in some unpopular decisions, actions and inactions like some of his ilk are known for, he is hardly remembered.

Dr. Owolabi is sound all round as he was at the field of play during his days. Lest I forget, I first saw him in 1976 during a league game between IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan and Rangers International of Enugu at the old Enugu Township Stadium. My classmate and I came to watch that cracker of a league encounter all the way from one of the Premier Missionary schools, the very prestigious Government College Umuahia. Owolabi was at his best; however, the rest is now history.

Dr. Owolabi did the most expected from not only an unbiased professional who has seen its all but his sterling attitude comes off the lane where some ex-internationals instead of coming out strong on those things that would improve the game rather sadly dabble into trivial issues like this or that player should quit the national team when such ex-internationals are nowhere near the technical bench of the team.

What Dr. Owolabi has said is what is required from a sound mind, not the contractors that are seeking to be noticed for patronage from NFF. The action of such gullible ex-internationals have not only destroyed the very fabric of the Super Eagles squad in the recent past who ordinarily needed some good measure of experienced and exceptional players of character, that would serve as guide to the technical hand to use as a peg to help build a strong, mentally and otherwise balanced team.  In that colouration, therefore, I hail Dr. Felix Owolabi’s courageous and impartial observation where most of his 1980 class of the Eagles have fallen to the deceit of the banana peels and derailed from speaking from their heart of hearts which is rather shameful.

It was against the above inflammable ground therefore that I back into to the views of Dr. Owolabi on the Nigerian League. He is a veteran and as I have said, knows the inside-out and even more now on the local league and then administration of the sport. If you have read that his interview in the Guardian on the Nigerian league, you will no doubt come to full terms or grip with the teething problems the players and sundry undergo.

His account is vivid and so cannot be faulted by anyone that is not mischievous. Nigerian league is upside down and like anything, Nigeria is not only rotten but haywire in all its ramifications. Telling the story of the Nigerian League serially would not only bore the narrator, listeners and the readers due largely to ambiguities’ surrounding the institution called the Nigerian League.

It may not be out of place to say here that the Nigerian league is like ‘a tale told by an idiot,’ apologies to William Shakespeare of blessed memory. It is a league that is not only colourless but that has no future ambition.

To be honest with you, without the fact that someone like, Dr. Felix Owolabi took out some minutes off his very busy schedule to speak on the Nigerian League, this Reporter has feigned blind eyes and deaf ears on this annual ritual that never improves.  It is the more you look, the less you see kind of arrangement.  

Two years ago when this page wrote of the obvious shortcomings and pitfalls in the entire set up, protests were made personally to this writer or through people very close to me that I should let the fledging annual champ be, as write-ups like mine were capable of scaring investors in what they said is the ‘Rebranded’ NPFL. Since then, Alhaji Shehu Dikko, my good friend Salihu Abubakar and Nduka Irabor have in the NFF style looked the other way not extending invites and sundry to Daily Sports but nevertheless, we have not stopped giving the NPFL first rate reportage and fair commentaries.

It gladdens my heart that someone of Dr. Owolabi’s status came up to return ‘No Improvement on the Nigerian League’ verdict last week and one believes that it was not this columnist that whipped into the ears of the ex-international to spill the beans publicly. Owolabi is a leader and very intelligent too way back his playing days at the highly intellectual then Green Eagles team.

His interview with the Guardian last week, which Daily Sports quoted, made a great number of viewers because of its naked truth nature. He did not beat about the bush; neither did he resort to tongue in cheek kind of attitude often employed by many, including his former team mates. He hit the nail on the head and called a spade by its name and we know that authorities in political Nigeria, nay the continent never like such face(s).

The interview in our tradition here would be re-run for the benefit of those that missed it in Daily Sports or The Guardian.

My candid opinion remains, it was the usual vintage Dr. Felix Owolabi a.k.a Owoblow. Methinks also that posterity would judge both those people administering our larger football and the NPFL. What goes up must come down and verse visa. I vehemently stand by Dr. Felix Owolabi’s view on the Nigerian League as I have been vindicated after two years by even someone who should know better, therefore the prejudiced accusations and counter-accusations by NPFL bigwigs and their agents, even though I dismissed such with just a wave of the hand, is now open knowledge that it has been all motion no movement in our league administration – mere wind dressing if you like. Senator-elect Ifeanyi Uba of FC Ifeanyi Uba and Dr. Felix Obuah of the Go Round FC fame are the only individual survivors or investors in the hostile NPFL terrain; a sad picture of a sort.

Only State governments that use the teams as political tools have kept the lame duck yearly league summit alive. As he rightly pointed out vividly, the players have been the sustainers of the Nigerian league, bearing all sorts of hardships and short changes from their various club side government appointees that oversee the various teams in NPFL. We have seen the players always at the receiving end as these club chairmen and officials connive with NPFL as partners in crime against the players that have been the reason for the Nigerian league. I must thank Dr. Owolabi for his insightfulness, forthright and foresighted observations. I still believe that together we will get Nigeria and her apparatus working again practically not via propaganda!

It was a different ball game when Dr. Owolabi and coy held sway. Things have turned upside down dramatically and especially from 2015 till date at all tiers and the center cannot hold any longer. Once again, this columnist salutes Dr. Felix Owolabi for standing out though it would accentuate more of the authorities’ behaviour of not looking his direction and my take here is that since he has been surviving soundly without their patronage over these odds years, he should continue to stand out glaringly and lend his voice to these very obvious wrongs meted out to our supposedly local football, Period. Nothing would be best than that. The legend has never hit anybody below the belt; rather his was the way forward for the good of the game . . . Fair play! Like Dr. Owolabi, I hail Nigerian players plying their trade in the very harsh Nigerian League.

For this columnist, only the best standard practices would stand the test of time no matter how long and hard the oppressors try to suppress the truth. Since truth is constant, nothing would sink it. Join us as usual as we discuss this in our red hot social media handles or platforms, as you keep shooting hard, till next week!!

No Improvement In Nigerian League says Felix Owolabi

Former Nigerian International, Felix Owolabi, has hailed players and clubs for sustaining the country’s league, despite the harsh conditions they face, when compared to the state of leagues in other parts of the world. Speaking with The Guardian, Owolabi said that in spite of the fault noticed in the operation of the leagues in the country, the clubs should be commended for allowing its continuity.

“A lot of things are happening in Nigerian football. As someone who has seen it all, one must appreciate the little we have achieved so far. But quite unfortunate, there has not been much improvement in our local league,” he said. Over the years, inadequate funding has been a bane to the growth and smooth running of the local leagues in the country. There have been recurring complaints of unpaid match bonuses and salaries by clubs, as well as difficulties in traveling arrangement, which has almost stunted the players’ desire, hence, the distortion in the growth of the local league.

Owolabi said: “In Nigeria today, almost all the clubs that belong to the government find it difficult to get the needed funds to run them successfully, especially when a government does not like sports, particularly football. Then you envisage the challenges that lie ahead for the club.” Owolabi, who played for the then IICC Shooting Stars up till 1992, believes that a lot needed to be done for the players’ welfare in order to get them back to the days of glory of the country’s league.

“I can’t imagine players traveling a long distance to honour a league match. I can recollect a match where a club that came to Ibadan for a league game and the players that I saw all looked hungry like they haven’t eaten. The fact is that most of them are owed match bonuses, salaries by their clubs. “May be, the only reason why these boys are still putting up their effort is the hope that one day luck will shine on them either via an invitation to the national team or a greener pasture,” he stated.

Source Daily Sports

Posted April 22, 2019

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