Governing Bodies
Nigeria @ 61: Media men, the unheralded heroes of Nigerian sports
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
Year in year out, Nigerians celebrate the attainment of self government by reeling out sectoral marks including that of sports. Mention is hardly given to those people whose efforts had seen Nigerian sports leaping over national frontiers.
These are the media men, the sports journalists who have in various forms contributed to national development. They represent the factor responsible for the spread of sports which have helped in building bridges.
They are the bridge for the fans, the participants and the sports disciplines. If people talk about a factor responsible for spread of sports’ passion, they are directly talking about the sports writer.
In the 61 years of Nigerian independence, while growth in sport has been dynamic, the mass media undoubtedly, are in the vanguard of factors leading to its growth and popularity.
The media make it possible for sports to vault over regional, national and even continental frontiers. Through the mass media, it is possible for the prowess of a hitherto local star to stimulate the invasion of foreign scouts.
The mass media have therefore been partly responsible for the fame and wealth some of the footballers are getting.
Also, through the works of the sports journalists, the local fans become privy to the exploits of the legion of Nigerian players abroad.
The attention which the mass media lavish on sports generally, and football in particular, is illustrated by the comparison with other segments of the national life.
Radio and television broadcast have special time allocated to sports reporting. It is even more glaring in newspapers.
Globally, since the 1870s when the Hungarian-American newspaper publisher, Joseph Pulitzer organised the first sport department in his just purchased New York World, it had become traditional for publications to separate sports news from the rest.
While economic, political and other social matters are often parts of regular news reports; sports have their distinct pages and often encroach into pages for regular news such as front page when the events assume greater proportions.
Some editors have found the need to make sports pages the selling factor of their newspapers.
The relationship between sports and the media is therefore inter-dependent. The newspapers have the tendency to believe that they need sports, to sell more copies.
Sports too, need the media to sell themselves. The relationship is therefore symbiotic.
It is therefore to the credit of sports journalists that passion for sports, especially, football has been pervasive. To the overwhelming fans that are relegated to the anonymity of spectators’ stands, the sports journalist serves a vital role.
It is through his works that the fan follows the actions in his favourite sport and improves his knowledge of the star performers.
Larry Izamoje set up the first sports radio in the country and the station has done so well in getting many Nigerians informed. Thanks to the penetrating effect of radio.
The media men have not only kept alive the entertainment values of sports, but have also supplied informative and educative news on the game. Through surveillance journalism, the Nigerian sports writers had supplied vital information on Nigerian oppositions, so that in the march to victory of the Super Eagles for instance, the press played vital roles.
When in 1989 Nigeria suffered a two-year ban on infringement on age-regulations, the National Concord, through a series of articles, revealed FIFA’s double standard on the issue as some notable football powers – Brazil and Italy – had committed similar offence.
Since 1960, the media has produced an array of sports journalists. For purpose of easy comprehension, football writing will be used to illustrate the illustrious contributions by the media men.
Football undoubtedly gains its pride of place, owing to the lavish attention of the mass media, both traditional and the new.
The mass media undoubtedly, are in the vanguard of factors leading to its growth and popularity. The newspapers, the radio, television and lately, the social media, make it possible for football to thrive.
Through the mass media, it is possible for the prowess of a hitherto local star to stimulate the invasion of foreign scouts. The mass media have therefore been partly responsible for the fame and wealth some of the footballers are getting.
Practitioners are now moving from the era of merely reporting the game to administering it. Many well respcted sports journalists have moved from what they were reporting to perform rescue jobs in administration.
One of the well-respected sports journalists, Paul Bassey (Paul or is it “Sport” Bassey), was called up for rescue mission in his home state, Akwa Ibom and has twice the club into continental competitions and a one league tile.
Bassey is treading a path that is not too unfamiliar for the sport journalists. Aisha Falode, a queen in sportscasting, has been a recurring face in women football administration.
Also, more than any position, journalism can lay claim to the soul of Nigerian league! Four of the current 20 clubs, almost a quarter of the fold in the elite Nigerian league, are being run by journalists.
Tell me of another career that can boast of the feat. It is a reward for the services journalism has rendered
to the beautiful game.
Before Bassey in the present dispensation, we have Emeka Inyama, who took Abia Warriors from the lower rung of the league to the premier division.
Inyama is a journalist, who had worked at the Imo State-owned Statesman, Champion Newspapers and later the Sportslink.
Godwin Enakhena, whose daily presentations on radio and television are delights, steered the MFM team from the Nigeria National League, the second-tier division in Nigerian football, to the premier league. As the General Manager of the club, he steered it to become the winners of a global tournament among churches in 2014.
Also, Moses Etu, the journalist who transited from being a media officer to chairman of continental title chasing Warri Wolves. His story is almost like that of the Biblical Joseph. He was probably thinking on how he would consolidate his position as media officer of Warri Wolves, a position he assumed in 2013, but he got a surprise package as he was named the ‘supremo’ of the club on January 5 this year.
Prior to his joining the club, he had been a freelance journalist with National Sportslink, SoccerStar before joining the Delta State-owned newspaper, The Pointer in 2008.
Before the quartet of Bassey, Inyama, Enakhena and Etu, Fan Ndubuoke, another notable journalist steered Heartland to win the Federation Cup in 2012, just as Bode Oyewole who had been a journalist at Radio Nigeria
Ibadan led Shooting Stars to win the league in 1998.
Perhaps, as a tribute to journalism, that was the last time the club tasted national honours. Journalism did not just end at putting its personnel in high position of running the clubs; the control of football associations has been getting journalistic influences.
Fan Ndubuoke once headed the Imo State FA, just as his ‘twin’ brother from another mother; Emeka Inyama did some years ago in Abia State. Frank Ilaboya, another journalist headed the Edo State FA. Journalists are not done yet.
Nduka Irabor, another notable journalist midwifed the present dispensation of the improved premier league as the pioneer boss of the League Management Company.
In other category, Alloy Chukwuemeka, who was a freelance journalist at both Sportslink and SoccerStar later became the Team Manager and later General Manager of the Ilorin-based ABS club.
For some time, he has been the secretary of the Club Owners Association.This brings to relevance, the age long quote of former England and West Ham United player, Malcolm Allison: “A lot of people in football don’t have much time for the press; they say they’re amateurs. But I say to those people. ‘Noah was an amateur when he built the Biblical Ark, but the Titanic (supposedly unsinkable, but sank in its first voyage) was built by professionals.
Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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