Governing Bodies
Nigeria Super Eagles are 73 years old today
BY KUNLE SOLAJA
It is 73 years today 26 June that the Nigeria’s national football team was first composed. It was on this day in 1949 at the Labour Office in Lagos, 17 players were named as members of the International Group, a name given to Nigeria’s first national team preparatory to a proposed goodwill tour of the United Kingdom in August.
On the day Nigeria beat Guinea 1-0 to become the first team to advance to the knock-out stage of the 2019 Afcon in Egypt, the Nigerian team symbolically clocked 70. In a country where record-keeping is still a big challenge, the Platinum Jubilee of the soccer team easily passed unnoticed, unmarked and uncelebrated, since the evolution and developments of the team are not documented.
The 18th player was announced five days later at the Labour Office, where the then chairman of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) Capt. Donald Henry Holley was also the chairman of the Labour Advisory Board.
Holley had worked tirelessly to see the formation of a Nigeria national team and also ensured they ventured abroad and thus became the first African and Afro set of players to have a tour of the United Kingdom.
Raising a Nigeria national team had been a long time dream of Holley who had lived in Nigeria for 24 years since 1925. At the time, he called himself a Nigerian.
In one of the trial matches played by the selected side, against Lagos European team, the latter won the match. According to a newspaper account, when Holley got back home and announced the result to his wife, Dorothy, she exclaimed: “You mean the Europeans have beaten us.”
Holley at the send off party for the team held at the Island Club, Onikan on 11 August 1949, he sentimentally remarked: “This UK Tour is the end of my dream.”
It was largely through his efforts that Nigeria was able to send a team which he led to the United Kingdom and a £1,800 was made. By then he had become a commissioner of Labour.
“Some years ago, the idea of inviting the English Football Association to this country was mooted out. But when it was found impossible, they decided that if they didn’t come to them the Nigeria Football Association would go to England.
“This tour is the end of my dream”, said Captain Holley. He left Nigeria in July 1950, barely nine months after the famous UK tour. Six years later, he died in the UK in December 1956.
In 1955, Reginald Banham Allen, better known as Derby Allen who was then the secretary/treasurer of the NFA wrote that the NFA existed thanks to the generous donation of the Lagos & District Amateur Football Association (LDAFA) of which Captain Donald Henry Holley, better known as Captain D.H Holley headed. He later became the chairman of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) and the manager of Nigeria’s first national team.
It was largely through his efforts that Nigeria was able to send a team which he led to the United Kingdom and a £1,800 was made. By then he had become a commissioner of Labour.
On 26 June 1949, he announced the names of Nigeria’s first national team. The players were: GOALKEEPERS – Sam Ibiam (Port Harcourt) and Isaac Akioye (Ibadan); DEFENDERS: Justin Onwudiwe, Olisa Chukwura (Abeokuta), Ahmed Tijani Ottun (Marine FC), Isiaku Shittu (Lagos UAC), John Dankaro (Jos), Hope Lawson (Marine FC), Dan Anyiam (Lagos UAC) FORWARDS: Francis Mesembe Otu (Marine FC), Peter Anieke (Railway), Sokari Dokubo (Railway) Edet Ebenezer (Port Harcourt), Godwin Anosike (Railway), Etim Henshaw (Marine), Tesilimi Balogun (Railway) and Titus Okere (Railway).
Five days later, at the same Labour Office on 1 July 1949, the 18th player, Okoronkwo Kanno was controversially announced.
He was appointed player/secretary of the team having been educated for a while in England.
The selectors believed he had acquired the refinements necessary to be the face of the team in England.
His selection was a subject of controversy at the press conference held by the council of the NFA.
As at today, all but one of the pioneer members of the Nigerian team have died. The sole survivor is Titus Okere who ventured abroad in 1953 and never returned.
Now 93, he leaves a quiet life in Kent, some 61km to London in the UK.
Related story: https://www.sportsvillagesquare.com/2022/06/01/long-forgotten-1949-uk-tourists-legend-titus-okere-is-alive%ef%bf%bc/
A former member of the FIFA Council, Mamoutou Toure, has been released from jail in Mali after almost two years in detention for alleged corruption, Malian media reports said on Wednesday.
Toure, president of the Malian Football Federation since 2019, was released after 622 days in prison on Tuesday.
He served on the FIFA Council, world football’s all-powerful decision-making body, for four years until last month when he lost his seat after failing to contest new elections.
The 67-year-old was arrested in August 2023 on allegations of embezzling $28 million of public funds but was granted a provisional release order by the Malian courts, reports said.
He was accused of misconduct during his time as the National Assembly’s financial and administrative director from 2013-2019.
Toure denied all charges and, during his time in jail, was last August re-elected as Malian Football Federation president for a second consecutive term, with his supporters claiming he was a victim of a conspiracy fuelled by detractors.
While in jail, he received a letter of support from FIFA president Gianni Infantino. However, as of last month, Toure is no longer a member of the FIFA Council or the Confederation of African Football’s executive committee.
-Reuters
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The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has denied reports of an outstanding debt to former captain Christian Chukwu and has challenged anyone with verifiable documents to prove otherwise.
Chukwu, a former national team captain and chief coach, died last Saturday.
The Nigeria Football Federation decried statements in a section of social media that the football-ruling body was indebted to the deceased.
Reacting to one statement on social media that claimed NFF owed the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations-winning team captain the sum of $128,000, NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, said: “There is no record in the NFF of any outstanding indebtedness to ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu.
“During the first term of the Board headed by Amaju Pinnick, a committee was set up to diligently peruse the papers of coaches who were being owed, even from previous NFF administrations.
“That committee was given the clear mandate to verify all debts and ensure that the coaches being owed were paid immediately. I am aware that the ‘Chairman’ was in the employ of the NFF between 2002 and 2005, before he was relieved of the post following the 1-1 draw with Angola in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Kano in August 2005. There is certainly no record of indebtedness to him in the NFF.”
Sanusi challenged anyone with genuine and verifiable documents of NFF indebtedness to any coach, who has worked with any of the National Teams over the past two decades, to come forward and tender those documents.
“As a credible organization that is very much alive to its responsibilities, if we are confronted with any genuine document of indebtedness to any coach, we will offset the debt immediately.”
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Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and France soccer great Michel Platini were both cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss court on Tuesday, two and a half years after they were first acquitted of the offences.
The pair, once among the most powerful figures in global soccer, were cleared of fraud at the Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in the town of Muttenz, near Basel.
The hearing came about after Swiss federal prosecutors appealed against their 2022 acquittal at a lower court.
Both men had denied the charge which related to a 2 million Swiss franc ($2.26 million) payment Blatter authorised for Platini in 2011.
The court said there were doubts about the prosecution’s allegation the payment for Platini, a former captain and manager of the French national team, was fraudulent.
The 2022 indictment had accused Blatter and Platini of deceiving FIFA staff in 2010 and 2011 about an obligation for world soccer’s ruling body to pay Platini.
“They falsely claimed that FIFA owed Platini, or that Platini was entitled to, the sum of 2 million Swiss francs for advisory work. This deception was achieved through repeated untruthful claims made by both accused parties,” the indictment said.
But the court cleared the pair, saying their account of an oral agreement for the payment could not be ruled out.
Platini had argued that the payment had been partly deferred until 2011 because FIFA lacked the funds to pay him in full immediately.
The court said the pair had both been consistent in their accounts of the payment, which covered consultancy work carried out by Platini for Blatter between 1998 and 2002.
Platini’s experience as a top footballer and coach, explained the size of the payment, said the court, which followed the legal principle that in cases of doubt, favour the accused.
“It can not be assumed that the defendants acted with the intention of enriching themselves in the sense of the charged offences,” the court said.
The scandal, which emerged in 2015 when Platini was president of European soccer’s ruling body UEFA, ended his hopes of succeeding Blatter, who was forced out of FIFA over the affair.
Blatter and Platini were suspended from football in 2015 by FIFA for ethics breaches, originally for eight years, although their exclusions were later reduced.
Platini said he was relieved the case was over, and he had received messages of support from 10,000 people.
“The persecution of FIFA and some Swiss federal prosecutors for 10 years is now over,” Platini told reporters. “It is now totally over. And for me, today, my honour has returned and I am very happy.”
The 69-year-old said he thought the case had been intended to prevent him becoming FIFA president, but he was now too old to return to football.
The money, which had been confiscated and held by the Swiss authorities, can now be returned to him.
A frail-looking Blatter hugged his daughter Corinne after the judgement and said he was relieved with the decision.
“It is a great relief for me because it’s been going on for ten years. It’s like a sword of Damocles hanging over my head,” he told reporters.
“And now it’s over and I can breathe,” the 89-year-old said.
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 20 months in jail, suspended for two years for both Blatter and Platini.
The Swiss attorney general’s office said it would review the written judgement, before deciding whether to appeal again to the Swiss Federal Court, the country’s highest legal authority.
-Reuters
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