Governing Bodies
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE ADAPTS TO A FLUID CONCEPT – HOME AND AWAY
Two European football giants, Atletico Madrid and Chelsea, will meet in the Champions League on Tuesday (Feb 23).
The site of this much anticipated game? Bucharest, Romania.
On Wednesday, Manchester City will play German team Borussia Monchengladbach. That game will be in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, where English champions Liverpool beat Germany’s RB Leipzig last week.
In the Europa League, the continent’s second-tier club championship, neutral sites are now almost as common as home games. Last week, Spanish and English teams played in Italy, and teams from Norway and Germany met in Spain. On Thursday, a week after London club Arsenal played to a draw against Portugal’s Benfica in Rome, the teams will meet again in the second leg of their not-home-and-home tie near Athens.
The pandemic has wreaked havoc with international sports schedules for a year, and that chaos continues to have an effect on football’s biggest club tournaments. The reasons – government edicts, travel restrictions and quarantine rules – vary around Europe.
In some countries, teams are still allowed to travel to and from their opponents’ stadiums without issue. In others, countries have blocked entry to visitors from entire nations or drawn up onerous rules that make such travel impractical in a football season when teams often play two or three games a week.
Uefa, the European football governing body that runs the competitions, has decided that if restrictions adversely affect any game, it will be played at a neutral site where travel is permitted. But the decision to play knockout games in places seemingly chosen at random has led to confusion and not a little grumbling.
Real Sociedad, for example, played their “home” leg against Manchester United last week in Turin, Italy, but will play the return match at United’s home, Old Trafford, on Thursday.
“It does not seem coherent to me that as the home team, we play on a neutral field, and as a visitor, we do it there,” Roberto Olabe, Real Sociedad’s director of football, told Diario Vasco. “I would like the return to also be on neutral ground or for Uefa to appoint a single venue for a one-game tie as it did last year.”
The displeasure has not been universal. Both Hungary and Romania, whose teams almost never go deep in major European competitions, have been eager to bring the games to their countries – even if, in many cases, they must still be played behind closed doors.
“A match played in the framework of the most prestigious European inter-club competition is a major sporting event, and we offered our support to the organisers as soon as this possibility was raised,” the Romanian football federation president, Razvan Burleanu, told Agence France-Presse.
The playing of some games at neutral sites has turned the first tiebreaker for the tournament, the away-goals rule, into something of a paradox. Normally, if a home-and-away tie ends with neither team ahead in total goals, the team with the most goals away from home advances. The logic is that scoring away from home is a little harder in a hostile environment and should get a small bonus.
But home is not the same for everyone. Chelsea, for example, will play their away game not at Atletico’s Wanda Metropolitano stadium but on neutral ground in Bucharest. But any goals scored there still will count as away goals only for the English team.
Atletico will then have to defend, or make up, any difference in the score line on Chelsea’s home field in London next month.
For the Benfica-Arsenal match-up, the away-goals rule seemed even more puzzlingly arbitrary. The first leg in Rome ended in a 1-1 tie, when Arsenal were considered the away team. Benfica will be the away team in Greece, but if that leg ends in a higher-scoring draw – say, 2-2 – Benfica will advance by having scored more away goals.
(Some European football traditions appear immune to the coronavirus: Serbian club Red Star Belgrade were forced to apologise last week after some of their fans broke into a closed stadium for a Europa League tie against Milan and racially abused Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is of Bosnian descent.)
Football’s scheduling problems may not be over, however. The continuing reach of the pandemic has called into question the plans to stage this summer’s European Championship in 12 cities around Europe. Traditionally, the event has been a less-sprawling affair hosted by one country or a pair of neighbouring ones.
Given the travel complications laid bare by the club competitions, the idea of national teams flying around Europe seems foolhardy or downright dangerous. Already there are calls for relocating the entire tournament to a single county, probably England, which is already scheduled to host the two semi-finals and the final.
Over the weekend, The Sunday Times of London reported that the British government had told Uefa it was ready and willing to stand in as host of the full schedule of games, although the country’s health minister promptly denied that report.
-New York Times
Governing Bodies
Sanusi set for record-extending tenure as Nigeria’s football politicians assemble in Asaba
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
Speculations gathered ahead of the 2024 Annual General Meeting of the Nigeria Football Federation holding in Asaba on Friday have it that tenure elongation for the General Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi, is a major item on the agenda.
Neither formal confirmation nor denial has been issued since one of the leading newspapers in Nigeria, ThisDay dropped the hint.
The agenda of the meeting is also not made public. Dr, Sanusi is the longest-serving General Secretary in history having been in office from 30 March 2015 making 3,476 days or nine years six months and four days.
It easily drowned that of his closest rival in tenure – Sani Toro whose tenure from 21 December 1993 to 3 May 1999 is merely 2020 days or five years, six months and 12 days.
Thus, no one had enjoyed a longer period in office than the incumbent, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi. It is speculated that the tenure will be extended as NFF has reported that all delegates have arrived in the Delta State capital by Thursday evening.
The NFF Annual General Assembly, the first of which took place 90 years ago in Lagos on 19 February 1934, is the biggest assemblage of football administrators and stakeholders in the country.
In one such meeting on 24 July 2008 in Makurdi, the football body changed its name from NFA to NFF.
This year, according to a press release by the NFF, the plenary will have in attendance, the chairmen and secretaries of football associations in the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory, chairmen and secretaries of the Nigeria Premier Football League, Nigeria National League, Nigeria Women Football League and the Nationwide League One, as well as chairmen and secretaries of the referees’ association, players’ union and coaches’ association. This group of 88 makes up the Congress.
They are joined by the members of the NFF Executive Committee and the management team as well as former NFF Presidents and General Secretaries.
The Minister of Sports Development, John Owan Enoh, is announced as the special guest. Nigeria’s Member of the FIFA Council, Amaju Melvin Pinnick is also expected as well as a representative of the West African Football Union (WAFU B).
The Governor of Delta State, Sheriff Francis Oborevwori will declare the General Assembly open.
Venue is the Unity Hall of the Delta State Government House.
Governing Bodies
Like in Egypt, former Nigerian Olympian, Sadiq Abdulahi wants Tinubu to declare ‘State of Emergency’ in Sports
Former Nigerian tennis player and Olympian, Prof. Sadiq Abdulahi has called for drastic action to arrest the decline of Nigeria in global sporting events.
The former tennis player who is now a professor in the United States declared that the “failure to win a medal at the regular 2024 Paris Olympics, the few medals at the Paris Paralympic and the fallout at the National Youth Sports Festival has exposed the deep problems facing the sport’s sector.”
He wants Nigeria to have the same approach that the Egyptian president has taken while reacting to the country’s performance at the Paris 2024 Olypics.
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered a comprehensive evaluation of sports federations that participated at the Paris Olympic Games, following a mission report submitted by the country’s sports minister.
According to Prof. Abdulahi, the National Sports Federations charged with the preparation of elite athletes have failed to do their job despite the cry for funding from the government.
“Federal Government cannot adequately fund all the Olympics sports. It is impossible.
“By declaring a state of emergency, new people, new approaches and new funding models will be identified. More importantly, the Federal Government will redefine grassroots sports development.
“We will lay sustainable foundation for sports development.”
Continuing, he called for the return of the National Sports Commission (NSC) which enabling decree was abolished through Decree No. 7 of 1991, but came back through presidential proclamation under Sani Abacha before it was abolished again.
The original NSC was established in 1964 as National Sports Council before the promulgation of Decree 34 of 1971 which legalised it as the apex Federal Government agency to control, regulate and organize sports.
“The FG may now bring back the National Sports Commission or the National Sports Authority. Our emerging national economy with the full participation of the private sector can support this new beginning. I hope this helps.”
RELATED STORY: President Al-Sisi orders sports system overhaul
Governing Bodies
CAF gives Yoruba and Arabic interpretations of ‘OLA’ the Super Cup 2024 Official Match Ball
The Confédération African of Football, CAF, has given the linguistics interpretation of OLA, the confederation’s official match balls produced by Puma which has also unveiled a special edition for the Super Cup duel holding on Friday in Saudi Arabia.
According to CAF, OLA, symbolizing the dynamic and energetic nature of African football, means “wealth,” “honour,” and “respect” in Yoruba and “rise” and “success” in Arabic.
The OLA ball stands out with its vibrant design and cultural significance. “OLA”
The ball is a mix of black and gold, representing power and sophistication. The ball will be the centrepiece of the eagerly-awaited match between the two giants of African football.
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