Nigerian sports declined in the last two decades, which have hindered its development. At the launch of MatchCentre, stakeholders highlighted lack of funding, poor government support, and poor administrative attitude hindering sports development in Nigeria.
Panelist at the launch of MatchCentre spoke about impending challenges facing Nigeria sports industry.
At the panel section, Nduka Irabor, veteran sports administrator and journalist, emphasised the fact that sports contribute to national GDP in other countries, but in Nigeria, there are no statistics to “suggest that anything is happening at all.”
Irabor explained that sport is a business with an ecosystem that involves tourism, entertainment, but stakeholders are still struggling to convince themselves that sports are a business. He believes this attitude should be the first to sport development in Nigeria.
“Today, the individuals, the citizens, and their government think that sports are just entertainment. So we need to do that mental transition that this is something that has become an industry elsewhere and can become an industry here today.
“So we need to have an attitudinal change to appreciate that there is an urgent need to develop the latent potential of sports to translate/contribute to national growth. And the problem here is that we tend to see some of our wealth comes from natural endowment. The problem is that we like to sit down and do nothing,” he said.
He further adds: “Until Nigeria stops sitting down and hoping that it will happen by somebody else’s efforts, our growth will remain stunted.”
Deji Omotoyinbo, ace sports pundit, also a panel discussant said woes rocking the sports sector was a reflection of the country as it is difficult to point to any industry that is working optimally. Even the ones that are supposed to be lucrative are having lots of issues, he said.
“I think it is coming to a point where stakeholders have to turn into a pressure group to sit in front of government and force them to realize that we have something in our hands that can boost the economy and we are not doing anything. There is a ready market in the football fan. Football is ready to spend money on their passion. So the market is there, we just need to put structures in place to exploit that market,” he further said.
While commenting on the role of the government as a key stakeholder, Irabor lamented its lack of response to efforts made to engage the government on ways of improving the sector to drive national growth by presenting sports as a business to them in 2017.
“Since 2017, we do not have feedback from the government. They have not engaged. In 2018, we went to the National Economic Summit Group (NESG) to push that football means business sports itself is big business, but nothing has come out of it,” he said.
Further highlighting the government’s role in the matter, Irabor listed policy, infrastructure, and security as key areas of focus. He said it was the government’s business to draw a clear-cut policy to show the direction of sports itself.
“It is the government’s business to help support the provision of infrastructure because the sport has other effects in society. It could stimulate other parts of the economy for growth. So, the government has that good business to provide that infrastructure necessary for sports to thrive — stadium, television. Our local league is not popular because is not on TV. People don’t see it. You have to create that supporting media. The government needs to do something here.
“Then, our various arenas do not have the facilities that would make you want to go out there and say, ‘this is my day out with the family’. In England, most of the police departments have soccer squad. Over the last five or six years, we have been trying to convince the Nigerian police to set up a soccer squad so that fans can be protected, but that mentality does not exist here,” Irabor explained.
Though the government needs to get it right, Omotoyinbo suggests that the private sector must get value for their investment.
“The private sector will not spend their money on anything if they are not deriving value because the money does not belong to an individual. If you put value out there, the private sector will buy into it.
“The first thing the government needs to appreciate is that sport is a business product, it is not recreation alone. Even to the point of personnel, If you do not somebody who can appreciate the impact of sports, it is going to be very difficult. So we need to put proper personnel in place who understand the problems so that they can provide the needed solutions,” he said.
Anthony Nlebem & Desmond Okon
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