Following their success at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) in Morocco, the Super Falcons are, unsurprisingly, the toast of all.
On Monday, an announcement from the Nigeria Presidency went forth, listing a number of rewards: Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) honours, three-bedroom apartments and $100,000 apiece for every player, and $50,000 for the 11 officials.
It was certainly lavish – the monetary outlay alone totals roughly N4.5 billion – but while the fact that the Super Falcons deserved some appreciation is irrefutable, there is a question as to whether this approach is sensible to begin with.
The wastefulness of the Super Falcons’ rewards package
On the eve of the WAFCON, in a YouTube documentary, various members of the women’s national team vented their frustrations concerning their treatment at the hands of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
While hearing from those directly affected certainly lent credence to their grievances, it was by no means necessary. No informed observation of the landscape of football in Nigeria would return a favourable assessment, less so for women’s football.
Furthermore, it is not even possible to claim that all of the focus is on the national sides: the Super Falcons literally went into the tournament still owed a backlog of allowances, off the back of three hurriedly arranged, last-minute friendlies in six months and under the guidance of a coach who has been functioning in an interim capacity for close to a year.
From that to suddenly being the toast of the government is quite the turnaround, especially when the NFF’s go-to excuse for their lack of fidelity and planning where the team is concerned is a lack of funding from said government. If we are to accept that, then that means that the presidency is rewarding the Super Falcons for winning in spite of the FG, rather than because of.
It simply is not the flex they seem to think it is; the players may genuflect and grovel while receiving these handouts, but would it not have been better if, say, half (heck, even a quarter!) of that sum had been ploughed into the team’s financial entitlement and preparation instead?
And that is before coming to the sheer wastefulness of it all. From what other important enterprise was this allocation plucked? Or is there an emergency presidential fund for the eventuality that national teams win international tournaments?
These are, of course, rhetorical questions: the answers to all of them are obvious.
It has been interesting to see many flay brands for ambush marketing – intending to profit off the success of the Super Falcons after the fact, as opposed to supporting them beforehand – when, in effect, the FG is doing the exact same thing. If the owners of a thing do not value it, why would an outsider?
At the end of the day, the truth is blatant: the Nigerian government, in all of its guises through history, has typically viewed football, and sports in general, only in terms of image laundering. And if that mentality never changes, nothing else will.
