Friday, February 13, 2009

African Footballer of The Year Award; Of What Relevance is it.

African Footballer of the Year Award What Good is it to African Football.

The annually held African Footballer of the year award was intended by the founding fathers of Confederation of African Football (CAF) to promote excellence in the game of football, encouraging the youths to stay off crime and play football to make a living and to keep fit. It was also intended to recognize those footballers of African origin that have distinguished themselves and have either won individual laurels or contributed immensely to their club’s glory and country’s accomplishment in year under review.
It is quite a welcome development for Africa to tow the lines of UEFA, FIFA and other confederations saddled with the responsibilities of administrating football in their various continents and at the world level.
Recently, the most prestigious award in the field of football in Africa has ceased to produced the standard and suspense required for an award of that magnitude.
See below a list of past winner since 1993 and the clubs they play for.

Year- /Winners /Nationality Club
1993 - Rashidi Yekini - Nigeria /Victoria Setubal
1994 - Emmanuel Amunike - Nigeria /Sporting Lisbon
1995 - George Weah -Liberia /AC Milan
1996 - Nwankwo Kanu -Nigeria /Ajax Amsterdam
1997 - Victor Ikepeba -Nigeria /Monaco
1998 - Mustapha Hadji -Morocco /Deportivo La Coruna
1999 - Nwankwo Kanu -Nigeria /Arsenal
2000 - Patrick Mboma -Cameroon /Parma
2001 - El-Hadji Diouf -Senegal /Lens
2002 - El-Hadji Diouf -Senegal /Liverpool
2003 - Samuel Eto’o -Cameroon /Real Mallorca
2004 - Samuel Eto’o -Cameroon /Barcelona
2005 - Samuel Eto’o -Cameroon /Barcelona
2006 - Didier Drogba -Cote d’Ivoire /Chelsea
2007 - Frederic Kanoute -Mali /Sevilla
2008 - Emmanuel Adebayor -Togo /Arsenal

From the above table it should be noted that of all the winners since 1993, no single winner plays for any African Club despite the fact that every year the Confederation of African Football organizes their own version of the Champions league which is supposed to be the most prestigious club football glory in Africa. It is quite unfortunate that no past winner of the African Champions League has been able to win the African Footballer of the year award since 1993.
The big question is this; what are the CAF administrators doing to encourage our African players to look inwards, if the only way you could stand a chance of winning the most outstanding award in Africa Football, is by plying your trade in Europe.
This has not in any way helped to improve the values or development of the game of football within the Africa continent. Egypt won the 2008 edition of the African Cup of Nation hosted by Ghana with predominantly 90% home based players taken from the Egyptian league and coached by an Egyptian coach; making nonsense of our over reliance on foreign coaches and Europe based players most of whom play with little or no commitment to their national teams.

Little is known about the various football leagues in Africa whereas too much is now known about the European league here in Africa, various fans club of top European clubs are found in the remotest of hamlets and villages all over Africa and on every match day commercial television viewing centers are jam packed with fans cheering their various European clubs whereas the various stadium in most parts of Africa are virtually empty when top league matches are being played. Some Football Associations shift important matches to other days, simply because a top club in Europe is playing a league match that same day. The reasons are obvious; people would rather pay to watch the Europeans clubs on TV than to go watch an important international match for free at any of the stadium.

CAF has helped in enhancing the growth of interest in the European leagues by their criteria for selecting or deciding who wins the African Footballer of the year.
In the last edition (2008) won by Emmanuel Adebayor, a Nigerian born Togolese national team and Arsenal football of England player, shows that Africa football administrators are still miles away from promoting the growth of the game in Africa.
In 2008, one cannot actually hold on to any particular accomplishment of Emmanuel Adebayor, he did not emerge as highest goal scorer in the premiership nor did he help the national team of Togo to win any title. Arsenal did not win any silverware in the whole of 2008.
Mohammed Aboutrika of Egypt and Al-Ahly football club on the other hand was instrumental to Egypt’s 6th Nations Cup title win, he also won the Africa Champions League with his club Al-Ahly; both honors came in the year under review.

To most football pundits, Mohammed Aboutrika who was born on November 7, 1978 in Giza, Egypt is the ideal African Footballer of the year 2008. His greatest disadvantage comes from the fact that he plays in Africa. And by this, the administrators of the game of football in African has confirmed as inferior, the game of football in Africa. I see it as gross injustice against one of the best football playing nations in Africa; Egypt that has one of the best organized leagues in Africa.

I guess the only way for Mohammed Aboutrika to win African Footballer of the year is for him to leave Africa and head for Europe since our administrator do not seem to attach values to those Africans working relentlessly to promote the growth of the game by remaining within the continent of African.

Unfortunately, young Africans have continuously been victims of fraudulent scouts who promise them heaven on earth and make them believe that once they get to Europe they would be handed juicy contracts to play for top European clubs, only to see themselves playing for low division clubs whose standard is not comparable to where they are coming from.
African Administration must as a matter of urgency review the criteria used for choosing future winners of this important award.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Chelsea Sacks Luiz Felipe Scolari

Luiz Felipe Scolari’s reign at Stamford Bridge has come to abrupt end. Scolari enjoyed the full confidence and support of the management, players and fans of the London club, but recent events has proved that the big man has not been able to fit into the big shoes left by the ‘Special One’ Mourinho; who transformed the London club into a silverware winning side. He is currently making waves in the Italian serie ‘A’ league with Inter-Milan FC.

Scolari came with a lot of confidence and hope promising to return the club to winning ways after the sack of Mourinho’s successor; Avram Grant. This however has not been the case since Scolari took over at Stamford Bridge; he has shown his lack of ‘experience’ in club football management. His string of losses and scandalous draws most especially at home ground has broken the hearts of millions of fans world wide who week in week out throng out to support their darling Chelsea Football club.

During his short spell as head coach of Chelsea FC, the once dreaded London club became so vulnerable that the weakest of teams could now hold their own again Chelsea. The string of losses and scandalous draws at Stamford Bridge; the home of Chelsea football club did not help matters either.

In the current season, Chelsea has become the weeping team of the other clubs that make up the legendary ‘Big 4’ recently losing scandalously to Liverpool, Arsenal and the ‘almighty’ Manchester United.

Scolari possesses an intimidating international record; having achieved the highest glory achievable by any football coach, by winning the world cup with his native Brazil in 2002. He also did very well as head coach of Portugal, turning them into a world power in international football.
The lesson for Luiz Felipe Scolari however is that success at the world scene or country level does not automatically translate totally to success at club level; where the stars are groomed and nurtured. The world scene is just an avenue to showcase the stars that has been made at the club level. The club challenges are however more enormous, tasking and challenging as you have to deal with day to day training, discipline and welfare of your players and crew. At club level a lot of matches are played sometimes twice in a week, strategies are mapped out and reviewed with every match and you do not have the luxury of time to experiment as it is the case at country level.

Scolari lost his job after about 7 months in charge in which period he played a total of 25 premier league games as head coach of the Blues. He has only won 4 premier league matches in the last 12 matches. This is the first time Chelsea has not been able to collect 50 points from their first 25 games since Roman Abrahimovich acquired the London club. Their main ‘Achilles heel’ however has been their inability to garner enough points at home and their loss of their invincibility at home, losing their once taunted ‘unbeaten run’ at their home ground to Liverpool football club.

Among the top 5 premiership clubs, Chelsea has dropped the most points at home having dropped a total of 16 points at home. Chelsea is no longer dreaded and if things were allowed to continue the way it was going they could stand the risk of not qualifying for the 2009/2010 Champions’ league, and at worst not even winning any trophies or silverware for this current season.

The life of a football coach comprises of two major events; HIRE and FIRE. When you do well, you stay when you fail to deliver; you are shown the way out. Scolari is a great coach, but I believe he still has a lot to learn about football at club level. That goes to buttress the saying that “there is no end to learning” and in the world of NOKIA, is this beautiful thought provoking phrase “No One Knows It All”.

I wish Luiz Felipe Scolari the best in his future endeavours.