Manchester United, Chelsea and Nigerians

THE passion, enthusiasm, indeed the frenzy that the European Champions League final, on Wednesday, between Manchester United and Chelsea football clubs threw up among Nigerians is a comment on the deep and continuing Eurocentrism of Nigerian football fans, in the absence of a similarly engaging local football league. About the same time as the Champion league final in Moscow, Glomobile, the telecom company that sponsors the local league was sending, via SMS, a Predict and Win promo in which it asked Nigerians to predict the winner of the Nigerian Premier League involving such teams as Bayelsa, Pillars and Heartland. This did not generate any excitement at all.

Very few Nigerians know the names of current Nigerian football clubsides. The stadia across the country have become desolate. And I guess I had made this point before: the most interesting thing about the National Stadium in Lagos these days is that it is one of the best places to get delicious peppersoup including nkwobi and point and kill, on a daily basis. On Sundays, the churches hold worship sessions in places which used to serve as training grounds for sportsmen and women. This story, of neglect and decay, is replicated across Nigeria. No Nigerian football team is quoted on the Stock Exchange. There is none that has a functional football stadium of its own, or a grip on the public imagination. I doubt if there are many Nigerians who know the colours of Nigerian football teams. Football coaches in Nigeria are also not the kind of celebrities that coaches are elsewhere. But Nigerians love football. They are crazy about it.

The English Premiership and European leagues have since filled the vacuum that exists at home. This much was clear on Wednesday, May 21. Very early in the day, the streets of Lagos had been taken over by Manchester Red and Chelsea Blue colours. Football fanatics decorated their cars with the colours of their favourite teams. In Mushin, young boys wore Chelsea Blue and they dared anyone in the neighbourhood to show up in Manchester Red.

Smart traders made quick sales from the emblems of English clubsides and the jerseys of the players. Nigerian families are divided into supporters of this or that English team with the most popular clubsides being Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool. This week, Arsenal and Liverpool supporters were quiet, but this did not necessarily force them to shift their loyalties to either Manchester United or Chelsea and if anyone did, it was only for the moment and most likely out of excitement. Arsenal and Liverpool fans nursed their regrets and vowed that next time around, it would be their turn. In Ikosi, a Lagos suburb, Man U supporters bought a cow and dressed it up in Red. Chelsea supporters did the same, and placed their own cow on display too.

In Nigeria, supporters of English clubsides have associations with presiding Chairmen and Secretaries; they have special uniforms and it is not unusual to run into a big owambe party, with a musician on the bandstand, all put together by fanatics of English football celebrating their club's victory. In Ikeja, on Wednesday, some streets had red or blue banners flying in the sky. By 7.30 p.m Nigerian time, about fifteen minutes to the kick-off of the match in Moscow, Lagos streets had been deserted. Ordinarily at such an hour of the day, Lagos roads are congested with traffic.

But the congestion had shifted to bars, restaurants, pepper soup joints, and similar locations or wherever a television set could be found. I was concerned that there could be an outbreak of violence. About a year ago, one fellow had been stabbed in the head because he dared to show too much excitement in a wrong location when his team won. The obsession with English football in Nigeria is a form of neo-colonialism, but this is a case of voluntary, wilful submission to the supremacy of the Outsider. In real terms, there may be elements of psychosis involved. With the national electricity supply down to less than 800 MW, and parts of the country in darkness for weeks, people still managed to watch the match with the help of generating sets.. Even in areas of the city where poverty is rife, you could see Hi-TV and DSTV dishes suddenly springing up a few days to the Moscow final.

I rushed out of the office to find my way to the Niteshift Coliseum where in the company of friends, and with a flowing supply of beer and goat meat pepper soup, I sat down to watch the match. I need not remind anyone that the match lived up to its billing, almost of the same status as a World Cup final. Manchester United and Chelsea are easily two of the most successful clubs in the world, with Man U parading extraordinary records and its manager, Sir Alex Ferguson certainly the most successful football manager in England in the last 50 years and perhaps beyond. There was only one Man U fan among us that evening. All the others are die-hard fanatics of either Arsenal or Liverpool. As for me, I am non-aligned, the maddening obsession is too much for me. Our friend, the Man U supporter insisted that he is not just a fan, he is also a stakeholder and an investor in Man U. "I bought some shares in the club, nothing much, but I just bought a few to show that I am fully committed to Man U." Here is a Nigerian buying a few shares in an English clubside.

And on Wednesday evening, he almost had a heart attack. First, he could not touch his pepper soup. His beer went cold and flat due to neglect. His eyes were glued to the TV set as if his life depended on it. When Man U missed two great chances in the first half, he slumped in his chair. When Chelsea equalised through Lampard in the dying minute of the first half, he was so sad, he blamed Man U defenders. He kept insisting that Sir Alex should take out Rooney who in his estimation was not playing well. We had to keep reminding him that Chelsea is not in Moscow to allow Man U run away with the prize. And besides, Moscow is home more or less to Chelsea with Russian owner of the club, Roman Abramovich, in the stands, keeping an eye, like Mike, on his investment.

As it turned out, Chelsea dominated the second half, sending Mike into paroxysms of fear. Two deadly shots one of them designed by Didier Drogba bounced off the bar in front of Man U's goal. But our Man U supporter was confident. Again he drew attention to the fact that Sir Alex had changed from a suit to a track suit. "Now, the war will begin", he boasted. We had to point out to him that the man was actually wearing a rain coat because it was raining heaviiy in Moscow. When Ryan Giggs was brought in to replace Scholes, Mike and the Liverpool fan who was now rooting for Man U, said: "Baba is here. Baba will change the game!"

Didier Drogba nearly spoiled the fun when in the later part of the match, he slapped Vidic. The red card that threw him out of the match and the stadium (he didn't show up to collect his medal) gladdened our hearts. Drogba is richly talented, but he is too much of a prima donna, and this stands in the way of the spirit of sportsmanship. And then the penalties came. The rain and passion-soaked match ended with Van der Sar saving Nicholas Anelka's final attempt for Chelsea and the Red Devils breaking loose in a celebration dance across the world. In all parts of Lagos, there were victory dances. Even yesterday, MBI, a Nigerian TV channel showed images of parties thrown by Man U fans. Our friend Mike ordered a round of drinks to celebrate the success of his investment: "by tomorrow morning, in fact even now, Man U stocks will go up," he said. On my way home, I saw Chelsea fans holding on to their jerseys as if a tragedy had befallen them. Man U fans from Ikeja all the way to Ojodu and Akute in neighbouring Ogun state spilled onto the streets and did victory laps. By now, it was around 12 midnight and it was instructive to see Nigerians expending so much energy on something that does not really concern many of them.

Yesterday, I got the following instructive text message from Tunde Sulaiman: "... I was in Sagamu yesterday before the match, there were pre-victory celebration carnivals by hundreds of unemployed youths all clad in Chelsea blue colour while the okada mounted Chelsea flags. There were rumours that a prominent traditional ruler donated a cow to be slaughtered in anticipation of Chelsea's victory. After the match, the whole town was like a cemetery. What madness of the highest order by foolish, unpatriotic fans of foreign football clubs." In Sagamu, as in Alakuko, Ikosi and other parts of Nigeria, Chelsea fans could not slaughter the rams and the cows that they had bought in anticipation of victory. In Lagos, a former Governor is said to have promised to host Man U fans to a big party, this weekend.

Tunde Sulaiman is partly right. What Nigeria must do is to capture and channel this amazing energiy, this passion for footbball into an opportunity for developing the local league and sports infrastructure. Once upon a time in this country, there were thriving football clubs: Stationery Stores, Mighty Jets, Enugu Rangers, Bendel Insurance, IICC, Abiola Babes, BCC Lions of Gboko, Leventis United which attracted as much support from the people. Today, football administration in Nigeria is in the hands of a money-spending, influence-seeking Mafia that is more interested in the opportunity to award contracts and travel abroad. Nigeria must get rid of this incompetent Mafia, and create a National Sorts Policy/Framework that is performance-driven with the potential to produce more Kanu Nwankwos, more Mikel Obis, more Chioma Ajunwas...There are too many talented young men and women on the streets of Nigeria, who are currently busy as fanatics of other people's achievements.

There are business opportunities involved also: all those traders selling Man U T-shirts and emblems can do a lot more selling the jerseys of Nigerian football teams if they are given the chance to express themselves locally. The private sector used to be actively involved in Nigerian football: sports-loving companies can be encouraged to explore the business potentials that have been demonstrated. The Moscow final was a great moment for English football, and for the European Union: a thriving local league can provide great opportunities for national branding and even foreign relations. Beyond all of this is the human dimension of the Moscow event: the bitter rivalry between Manchester United and Chelsea, the competition, the contrasts of victory and defeat, the unravelling of Drogba, John Terry and Ronaldo when it mattered most and the heroism of Van der Sar: all of which is a beautiful reflection of the depths of the human essence.