by Osita Chinedu
Arsenal FC has beaten FC Porto 4:2 on penalty shootout to book a place in the quarter finals of the UEFA Champions League 2023/24 season. The first leg of the two legged encounter started with the Portuguese giants snatching a late win over the Gunners at 90+4th minute on 21 Feb in Estadio do Dragao.
The North London giants came into the second leg on a one goal deficit hoping to salvage the jinx of over a decade – Arsenal last played in the UEFA Champions League quarter finals in the 2009/2010 season. The battle of the night seemed poised for a barren first half until the 41st minute when forward, Leandro Trossard fired in a Martin Odegaard through-pass into the far right of the goal to get the Gunners level on aggregate.
The highly tensed up game continued through the second half with the Gunners fighting relentlessly to end the seven-season-failed attempts to go beyond the Champions league round of 16 to no avail. Full time came and the game remained 1:0 in favour of the Arsenal and 1:1 on aggregate. The both halves of the extra time came and passed with no change as the game moved into penalty shoot-out to decide the winner.
Arsenal took the first spot kick through team captain Martin Odegaard which he successfully buried in the upper left of goal. Porto replied immediately with a Pepe goal from the spot. The Gunners took the lead from the spot once again from a carefully converted Kai Harvert’s penalty kick but the Arsenal keeper David Raya denied Porto the opportunity of coming level by stopping Wendell’s penalty kick.
Mikel Arteta’s men continued their perfect run on the spot kicks by Declan Rice’s and Bukayo Saka’s netting of the ball as the third and fourth penalty takers for the Gunners. On the other side, Porto’s Grujic netted his spot kick to make it two goals out of three spot kicks and keep his side’s hope alive in the tie but the Gunner’s man between the sticks finally dashed the Portuguese glimpse of hope by stopping Gelano’s spot kick making it his second save of the penalty kicks.
The reaction of Arsenal fans at the end of the game really explained the long bottled hunger and thirst for Champions League glory and some bragging rights. The Emirates went agog with celebration from both the players and fans. The same Emirates’ experience nevertheless was recreated all over Nigeria; public viewing centres, eateries and sorts, Arsenal fans defied the darkness as the game ended almost midnight West African time to engage in a spree of singing and dancing, eating and drinking plus the inevitable banter of reminding teams that were not in the UEFA Champions League to ‘hide their faces’ when men are talking.
The passion with which Nigerians embrace European league football leaves one wondering why the lethargy on her local league: the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL). Over one hundred million Nigerians between the ages of 15 and 54 follow these European football leagues tenaciously. The followership for just the pure love of the game or for monitoring and keeping an eye upon one’s investment (as sports betting has recently made it) notwithstanding, the bottom line is that a crux of Nigeria’s most active and productive population is interested in European football at the expense of her local football league and there is no mincing words about it.
It is really unfortunate that since about six years ago that Supersport withdrew from airing the NPFL matches, it was only in November 2023 that a deal was brokered with a satellite TV outfit StarTimes to be showing select matches of the Nigerian local league. The five-year deal was agreed with the TV outfit showing two matches weekly till February 18, 2024 when it will increase to showing four matches weekly for two years after which it will increase the number of matches to eight for the rest three years. While that effort is a welcome development, it is grossly inadequate considering the population of the target audience. A survey of the number of Nigerians on the StarTimes platform as opposed to the DSTV and Gotv might give a slight insight into this piece.
According to the Guardian 27th April, 2023, DSTV has the largest market for its operations in Nigeria with over 25 million subscribers. StarTimes on the other hand has about 4 million subscribers as was made known by her Chief Executive Officer David Zhang in a press briefing according to Business Day of May 23, 2019.
More so, there is a very urgent need for the state policy makers and the league managers to design and come up with policies that would lure corporate bodies and business entities into symbiotic sponsorship relationships. Such sponsorship deals could be tilted towards the subsidizing of ticket fares to enable more participation in spectatorship and building of fan base. In the long run, such corporate bodies and business entities are subtly building brand loyalty for themselves.
There should be efforts on ground to ensure that global best practices are upheld in all areas of the game from the standard of officiating to the involvement of innovative technical inputs like HD cameras and microphones, the VAR technology, goal line technology, standard communication systems, etc. If indeed the Nigerian local league must compete with its contemporaries in Africa and Europe, then these modern media equipment/technical inputs are non-negotiable.
The security of lives and property cannot be over emphasized. The security of match officials as well as players and spectators must be made top priority. Stiff sanctions that would discourage non-sportsman behaviours must be put in place with strong, independent and transparent investigative and implementation mechanism by its side because it is a thing to make rules but an entirely different kettle of fish to stand strong to mete out justice to defaulters, especially when sacred cows are involved.
The government should not ignore our beautiful game just in the hands of individuals because the other climes that Nigerians clamour after their leagues got involved and made their national leagues what they were today. The budgetary allocation to the Sports Ministry should be revisited and reinvigorated. A pragmatic approach to sports development beginning from the grass root level to the national is of a great essence since over time, the highly prized peace and unity of faith in Nigeria has been found achievable in the place of sports. Of course when the Super Eagles of Nigeria plays, the Moslem, the Christian and the Traditionalist likely sit together in one purpose forgetting their religious differences. So it is in the other sporting events as well.
The idle mind they say, is the devil’s workshop. Developing our local league to that global competitive level will among many other things, reduce crime to its barest minimum, create jobs for the teeming youths of Nigeria, become a production force and a gigantic addition to our GDP besides rewriting the name of the country as a force to reckon with in the game among other nations of Africa and the world at large.
This passion could be harnessed and channeled positively against vices, especially at a time that the nation is grappling with so much of violence, kidnapping, etc.
