...to give the game some credibility

The Federal Republic of Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa is held in high esteem for producing great personalities who are playing leadership roles in literature, athletics, soccer, politics, peace-building etc.

This great nation with great men like Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, General Obasanjo and a top national soccer team, the Super Eagles, has been caught in the net for what is clearly seen as match fixing. Can you imagine two football teams scoring a total of 146 goals in the space of 90 minutes in competitive matches?

If the results were not dubious they could be vying for the guiness book of records.

This is what happened; Plateau United Feeders defeated Akurba FC 79-0 while Police Machine FC demolished Babayaro FC 67-0 in the play-off fixtures, in which the winners were to qualify for the Nigeria Nationwide League Division 3.

Chairman of the Nigeria Football Federations (NFF) Organizing Committee, Chief Mike Umeh, who is also the NFF first vice-president, demanded that all four clubs are suspended pending further investigations into the fixtures.

He said that “It is unacceptable. This is a scandal of huge proportions. The four teams involved are suspended immediately and indefinitely…………………..”

NFF’s Director of Competitions, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi, assured that the organizing committee would issue severe sanctions on all persons and clubs found guilty as a result of the investigation.

“The teams involved, their players and officials, match officials, co-coordinators and anyone found to have played some role in this despicable matter will be severely dealt with,” Sanusi added

Match fixing is not peculiar to Nigeria alone. It is not the only nation to experience this unorthodox and unproductive bizarre display of soccer. Match fixing has happened in various countries including Ghana, Italy and some Latin American countries for different reasons. Six years ago in Ghana, Nania beat Okwawu United 31-0 while Great Mariners triumphed 28-0 over Mighty Jets in their First Division clash.

Nania and Mariners were level on points in their group and needed to win their final matches to qualify for the country’s top league, the Premiership.

As a result, all the four clubs and officials in Ghana’s second tier of football were demoted to the fourth tier by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) for match-fixing before the ban was overturned and reduced after an appeal.

In Italy, a former Juventus midfield player, Fabian O’Neil, admitted to fixing matches for money in 2000 and 2002. The stories can go on and on and on.

As we learned above, some match fixers did so to gain promotion on league tables or to escape relegation while others did so to be able to open the way for their collaborators win lotteries.

But this time, the feat calked by these Nigerians would defy logic and beat the imagination of those Mafioso’s who introduced match fixing in Europe and Latin America. To go to the extent of scoring close to ninety goals is mind boggling. It means that the entire losing team went to sleep with their goalkeeper going to sleep in the post. This is fishy isn’t it?

What is legally true about match fixing is that it is an offence punishable by law. Many prominent teams like Juventus FC had once suffered from match fixing by being fined huge sums of money and suspended for a while

Whatever advantage one gains with match fixing, it is wrong and takes away the shine and main reason why soccer is played. Even though football has come to be a money making venture, attracting businessmen to it, football is played basically for physical fitness and the promotion of friendship between opposing teams, communities and nations.

That is why some clubs bear the names of their communities’ towns and cities like Manchester united, Chelsea, Liverpool and Wa and Tamale United. They are formed to pitch their strength with opposing teams from other communities. It helps to show the prowess of communities in friendly hostilities that takes over the dreaded role of armies in war times.

Thus, in Ghana, you find Asante Kotoko with their motto; ‘wokum apem a apem beba’ ( if you kill thousand, thousand will emerge) to fight you and Accra Hearts Of Oaks ‘never say die untill the bones are rotten’.

Soccer encounter begins with handshakes by opposing teams and officials before going through hectic exercises of the match and ending it all up with friendly handshakes and hugging regardless of the result of the match. This means that, despite the importance of results in matches ,the most important of it all are the friendship and the physical fitness that result from it.

When played in accordance with the rules, soccer is capable of providing added advantage of producing heroes called stars. These are men like the world Pele, Christian Ronaldo, Abedi Pele, Lionel Messi, Stephen Appiah to mention but a few, who are icons ,who are priceless.

In fact, most of them are wealthy celebrities who are used in adverts and ceremonies worldwide. They did not achieve all these through lazy routes of match fixing. They achieved their feats through hard work and strenuous training playing in accordance with the rules of the game.

Apart from producing stars, soccer has lifted some nations and given huge financial muscle to nations like Brazil, Italy, Spain, Ghana and Nigeria, by opening them up to investors, tourists, project developers etc.

All these nations are famous because they organize competitive soccer devoid of illegalities. Because good and clean soccer competitions like world cup tournaments have a way of lifting up the image of nations as safe and accessible to all visitors, most nations do compete to host confederation and world cup matches such as is happening currently in Turkey for the ‘under 20 world cup’.

Despite the upheavals that greeted the confederation cup matches that ended with Brazil winning, Brazil would still gain some mileage in that tournament and the world cup competitions to be staged next year in Brazil.

Whatever the outcome of the investigations into the alleged match fixing resulting in the cricket scores in Nigeria, the credibility of soccer in Nigeria has suffered a jolt. Everyone concerned with soccer in Nigeria and Africa must work hard to bring the culprits involved to book by handing them the right dose of punishment. This way it will deter all those wanting to get involved in match fixing and soccer loving persons throughout the world would then hold Nigeria in high esteem once again for taking action to correct the wrongs done in the name of soccer competition in Nigeria.