Japan 2020: Team Nigeria’s Shambolic display a lesson to learn or a sign of terrible things to come

Team Nigeria’s Shambolic Display in Japan: A Learning Experience or Bad Portent

When the Nigerian team walked out in mismatched sportswear during the opening ceremony of the 2020 Olympics, many were not surprised and some even predicted such. After all, something similar happened in Rio 2016. The ensuing drama that followed took a lot of people by surprise. First, there was the ongoing drama amongst administrators of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) over the Puma sponsorship deal. In 2019, the AFN signed a $2.7 million contract with the German sports brand to produce kits for each athlete. This should have ensured all of the athletes would have more than one pair, but there were some members of the committee who rejected the deal, citing fraud.

In addition to the uniform issue, there was also the disappointment of 10 athletes being disqualified from the games. Their disqualification was due to the athletes’ failure to meet the minimum testing requirements of the Athletics Integrity Unit. The lack of testing is cited as another piece of the incompetence of the administrators and not a mark against the athletes. Despite the protest of those 10 athletes and the acceptance of blame by the Vice President of Nigeria’s athletics body, Fidelis Gadzama, five years of preparation went down the drain.

While most of the sports betting sites in Africa didn’t give much of a chance to Nigeria’s medal hopes, the team managed to leave the Olympic Games with two medals to its name. A Bronze for women’s long jump thanks to Ese Brume, and a Silver earned by freestyle wrestler Blessing Oborududu who fell just short of gold in her final match. Nigeria has not taken home a gold since the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney and it appears they lack the necessary leaders and structure to change that. Unless things start to take a turn in the positive direction, the failures in Tokyo might just be a taste of things to come. All hope is not lost as Nigeria boasts a population of around 200 million people and is one of the biggest economies on the continent of Africa. There are certainly opportunities to have better showings in International sports. Here are some possible solutions on how things can be improved.

Lack of Preparation & Negligence

Before the drama of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo this summer, the Nigerian team had already developed the wrong type of reputation from the previous games in Rio in 2016. The Olympics men’s football team, who secured the country’s only medal (bronze) at Rio, were left stranded in the United States where the team was camped in preparation for the Olympics. It took the intervention of former Chelsea midfielder, Mikel Obi and an anonymous benefactor to secure a flight to Rio, a few hours before their opening match against Japan.

Mikel Obi initially denied donating a large sum of money to help in the team’s preparation and welfare, but later admitted whilst pointing out the failures of the sports administrators in Nigeria. Some athletes who represented Nigeria in Rio had to source funds publicly to travel to Brazil, while others were left stranded. When asked why the country’s athletes were in such a dilemma and difficulty, Nigeria’s Minister of Sports at the time offered the rhetoric that no one forced the athletes to represent the country.

Who can forget the opening ceremony drama back in Rio 2016, as the official outfits for team Nigeria failed to arrive in Brazil on schedule. The country’s athletes were left walking around the Olympics stadium in mismatched tracksuits. Another typical example of poor preparation on the part of the administrators. While other countries begin preparations for the next Olympic Games after the previous one, Nigeria is notorious for the fire-brigade approach of waiting till the last minute before preparing for the competition. The country’s trials took place too close to the tournament, which leaves some of the athletes way too fatigued and unprepared to have any hope of an impact.

The majority of the athletes who put on the green-white-green of Nigeria at the Olympics are either based outside of the country or are privately funded. Unless the proper infrastructure is put in place in Nigeria itself, the country has no chance of improving its performance at future Olympic competitions. This is all incredibly disheartening when considering how blessed Nigeria is with an abundance of talented and driven people. All one needs to do is look to the talents of Bam Adebayo, Chindu Utah, and Akinradewo Foluke who won medals representing other countries in Tokyo.

Politics & Sports Don’t Mix Well

There’s always an element of politics involved in sports, after all, one needs a certain number of votes to be voted FIFA President or President of the International Olympics Committee (IOC). Politics seem to be taking over the Nigerian sports scene at this point. It seems one must be politically connected before receiving an appointment or a job in any of the sports federations in Nigeria.

A famous Nigerian politician once advised the country’s leaders to separate sports and politics. Just as can be seen with the most successful countries and federations like the US, Great Britain, France, and Germany whose plethora of medals in the just concluded tournament is evidence of the absence of political influence. They cited the performances of the country or local sports teams in major competitions as down to the interest of the leaders in sports. That advice has fallen on deaf ears. The Puma kit drama at the Olympics is a result of internal politics in both the sports ministry and the AFN, and the athletes came off worse from the needless bureaucratic infighting. A faction of the AFN accused the administrators who agreed to the Puma deal of fraud. Despite those officials being cleared of any wrongdoings, high-ranking members of the Nigerian sports ministry still opted against using the hundreds of kits provided by Puma. Instead, they opted to spend state funds to secure kits for the athletes, which in turn led to the lack of sufficient apparel for those athletes.

The Puma deal also had incentives for athletes, as the German sports brand pledged to offer cash rewards of $15,000, $5,000, and $3,000 for Gold, Silver, and Bronze finishes respectively. However, after the debacle of failing to see their branded kits on the Nigeria Olympic team, Puma was forced to cancel the deal, leaving athletes high-and-dry and without a chance of earning such cash rewards.

Another habit of the administrators in the country is promising to offer cash and lucrative rewards to athletes should they achieve a certain goal rather than providing an environment where those athletes can successfully prepare for the games. Because let’s face it, if you offer me $100,000 to cut down a tree and you ensure I’ve no option of sharpening my ax, I’m never going to successfully cut down the tree. Cash rewards are good, but until the Nigerian administrators and government start to provide its athletes with the necessary tools to compete, not only will shambolic outings like Tokyo continue, a host of these athletes are bound to search for better opportunities with other countries.

A Glimmer of Hope

The Nigerian Men’s Basketball team might have exited the Olympics in Tokyo with three losses to Australia, Germany, and Italy with a bottom finish. However, they offered hope of what the country can achieve with effective planning. The Nigerian Men’s Basketball team is sponsored and funded by private individuals. Eight of the team’s players ply their trade in the NBA and the team has a partnership with the Golden State Warriors. The D’Tigers, as they are known, ignited excitement in Nigeria after their shocking victory over the United States and Argentina in their pre-tournament games. The team, led by Golden State Warriors assistant coach Mike Brown, failed to make it to the quarterfinals but showed a glimpse of the great things that can be achieved should this level of preparation be maintained.

Their female counterparts qualified for their second Olympic Games in Tokyo, and despite losing all three group-stage games, the future of the team looks bright. Players like Erica Ogunmike, Elizabeth Balogun, and Kunaiyi Akpannah are all under the age of 24. The possible future additions of Arike Ogunbowale and Chiney Ogunmike should have the makings of a team that can do well in 2024 in Paris.

Conclusion

It wasn’t all doom and gloom for team Nigeria. Enoch Adegoke, 21 years old sprinter, qualified for the finals of the men’s 100m. A hamstring injury meant he couldn’t finish the race, but the potential is there. Nigeria can also look to the likes of Usheoritse Itsekiri, who just narrowly missed a chance to qualify for the 100m due to injury, and Divine Oduduru, who also barely missed the men’s 200m final, as the bright future for Nigeria’s hopes in Paris.

Tobi Amusan exceeded expectations by qualifying for the women’s 100m hurdles final and finishing in fourth place. Amusan’s outstanding display in Tokyo provided a bright spot for the women’s track team whose star athlete, Blessing Okagbare, was disqualified after she tested positive for Human Growth Hormone.

There’s a popular saying in Nigeria “Naija no dey carry last” meaning Nigerians don’t finish last, maybe it’s time for the country’s leaders and administrators to start targeting the first-place finish rather than hoping they don’t finish off as the worst of the worst.

Lindsey Lubkey

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MLB’s Exploding Chequebook: Parity Is Now For Suckers

Published on December 17, 2024

Bruce Dowbiggin

MLB has seen parity and proclaimed, “We don’t give a damn!” Okay, they didn’t say that. In fact they insist the opposite is true. They’re all about competition and smaller markets getting a shot at a title. But as the 2024 offseason spending shows, believe none of what you hear and half of what you see in MLB.

Here’s the skinny: Juan Soto‘s contract with the NY Mets — 15 years and guaranteeing $765 million, not a penny of which is deferred. Max Fried signed an eight-year, $218 million deal with the New York Yankees. Later, Nathan Eovaldi secured a three-year, $75 million contract to return to the Texas Rangers. Blake Snell (five years, $182 million with the Los Angeles Dodgers) and Matthew Boyd (two years, $29 million with the Chicago Cubs) added to the splurge.

There’s one more thing that stands out. MLB has no trouble with the financial big boys in New York, Los Angles, Texas, Toronto, Atlanta and Chicago shelling out money no small market dare pay. In the MLB cheap seats, Tampa, Pittsburgh and Miami can’t send out quality players fast enough. But MLB is cool with that, too, as those paupers get a healthy slice of TV money.

So yes, they’re all about talking parity with their luxury tax system. But to keep the TV, digital, betting and marketing lucre flowing they have to have large media markets swinging the heaviest bats come postseason. The question is, do MLB fans care the way they used to about parity? It says here they don’t. More want to seed best-on-best more often. Which is brutal but refreshing.

Their sister leagues, married to draconian salary cap systems, are still pushing parity, even as they expand beyond recognition. In our 2004 book Money Players, legendary Boston Bruins coach/ GM Harry Sinden noted, “The problem with teams in the league, is that there were (then) 20 teams who all think they are going to win the Stanley Cup and they all are going to share it. But only one team is going to win it. The rest are chasing a rainbow.”

And that was before the expansion Vegas Golden Knights won a Cup within five years while the third-year Seattle Kraken made a run in those same 2023 playoffs. There are currently 32 teams in the league, each chasing Sinden’s rainbow of a Stanley Cup. That means 31 cranky fan bases every year. And 31 management teams trying to avoid getting fired.

Maybe we’ve reached peak franchise level? Uh, no. Not so long as salary-capped leagues can use the dream of parity to sell more franchises. As we wrote in October of 2023, “If you believe the innuendo coming from commissioner Gary Bettman there is a steady appetite for getting a piece of the NHL operation. “The best answer I can give you is that we have continuous expressions of interest from places like Houston, Atlanta, Quebec City, Salt Lake City, but expansion isn’t on the agenda.” In the next breath Bettman was predicting that any new teams will cost “A lot, a lot.”

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly echoed Bettman’s caution about a sudden expansion but added, ”Having said that, particularly with the success of the Vegas and Seattle expansions, there are more people who want to own professional hockey teams.” Translation: If the NHL can get a billion for a new team, the heck with competitive excellence, the clock might start ticking sooner. After all, small-market Ottawa just went for $950.”

It’s not just the expansion-obsessed NHL talking more teams. MLB is looking to add franchises. Abandoned Montreal is once more getting palpitations over rumours that the league wants to return to the city that lost its Expos in 2005. Recent reports indicate that while MLB might prefer Salt Lake City and Nashville it also feels it must right the wrong left when the Expos moved to Washington DC 19 years ago.

The city needs a new ballpark to replace disastrous Olympic Stadium. They’ll also need more than Tom Brady to fund the franchise fee and operating costs. And Quebec corporate support— always transitory in the Expos years— will need to be strong. But two more MLB franchises within five years is a lock.

While the NBA is mum on going past 30 teams it has not shut the door on expansion after seeing the NHL cashing in. Neither has the cash-generating monster known as the NFL where teams currently sell for over six billion US. The NFL is eyeing Europe for its next moves.

The question that has to be asked in this is, WTF, quality of competition? The more teams in a league the lower the chances of even getting to a semifinal series let alone a championship. Fans in cities starved for a championship— the NFL’s Detroit Lions or Cleveland Browns are entering their seventh decade without a title or the Toronto Maple Leafs title-less since 1967— know how corrosive it can be.

Getting to 34, 36, maybe 40 teams makes for a short-term score for owners, but it could leave leagues with an entire strata of loser teams that no one—least of all networks, carriers and advertisers—wants to see. Generations of fans will be like Canuck supporters, going their entire lives without a championship.

In addition, as we’ve argued in our 2018 book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports and How The Free Market Can Save Them, watering down the product with a lot of teams no one wants to watch nationally or globally seems counter productive. The move away from quality toward quantity serves only the gambling industry. But since when has Gary Bettman Truly cared about quality of the product? So long as he gets to say, “We have a trade to announce” at the Draft, he’s a happy guy.

When we published Cap In Hand we proposed a system like soccer with ranked divisions using promotion and relegation to ensure competition, not parity. Most of the interviewers we spoke to were skeptical of the idea. But as MLB steams closer to economic Darwinism our proposal is looking more credible every day. Play at the level you can afford. Or just watch Ted Lasso. Your choice.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

Bruce Dowbiggin

Bordering On Legend: Why Josh Allen Is Hero to Two Nations

Published on December 14, 2024

Todayville

Headline: Josh Allen sets NFL mark with 3 TD passes and 3 TD runs, but Matthew Stafford’s Rams hold off Buffalo Bills 44-42

Canada has no NFL teams to its name. But different parts of the country have a fervent rooting interest in a team. Often it’s because of the local American markets that have been piped in by cable TV companies. The Lower Mainland of B.C. is fertile Seattle Seahawks territory. Alberta is partial to the Denver Broncos (owned for a long time by an Albertan). Manitoba and Saskatchewan get Detroit stations on their cable but are equally invested in the Minnesota Vikings.

In the East, Quebec and the Maritimes have plenty of New York Giants (older) and New England Patriots (Tom Brady) fandom. In southern Ontario, where the locals grew up on a diet of Buffalo TV icons Irv Weinstein and Tom Joles, there is little question that the Buffalo Bills are top of mind. As many as 20 percent of the crowd on game day comes south across the Peace Bridge. TSN and Sportsnet closely cover the Bills closely.

Not so long ago Rogers thought playing Bills games in Toronto might be a thing. For reasons ranging from ticket prices to the Bills ineptitude the gamble flopped. So they gave up the plan just as the franchise’s fortunes were to take a great leap forward in the name of quarterback Josh Allen, a raw talent from Wyoming, of all places. Opinions on whether his athletic ability and size (6-foot-5, 240 pounds) would translate in the NFL were many.

After all, while his QB rivals played in the Rose Bowl or the Orange Bowl, Allen had starred in the Great Idaho Potato Bowl. Using a pick obtained from Tampa, the Bills got him seventh in the loaded 2018 draft behind more heralded prospects Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold. He was considered the riskiest pick in the top seven. While none of the players taken before Allen have flopped, Mayfield and Arnold have wandered in the wilderness before finding success. Saquon Barkley has finally reached superstardom with a second team.

But not one of that septet has had quite the career arc of Allen. In just two years he took them to their first postseason since 1995. The next season he led them to the AFC Championship game where he lost to his future kryptonite, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. During his Buffalo tenure, he has led the team to a total of six playoff appearances, five consecutive division titles, and five postseason victories. Only a Super Bowl trip has eluded him.

But statistics don’t capture Allen’s dual-threat impact on the NFL. He’s not been alone. In our in 2022 column NFL Run/ Pass Maestros: Can’t Catch This, we wrote about the move to more mobile, improvisational QBs . Players such as Allen, Mahomes and Lamar Jackson of Baltimore, the two-time NFL MVP. Stick-in-the-pockets like Jared Goff, Kirk Cousins and Matthews Stafford are still viable threats, but it’s clear that to stay one step ahead of defensive coordinators a QB needs the option of rolling out, isolating a defender and making him choose between the run or pass.

Where it was rare for QBs to gain more than a few years running it’s now common to see six or seven QBs in the Top 50 rushers in the NFL. Currently six QBs are in the Top 50 rushers in the league. But where the competition have been race cars, Allen has been a snow plow, going through, not around, defenders.

His feats of strength would impress George Costanza’s father. Week after week he makes single-handed plays that deliver the Bills victory. His weekly highlight reel of mad dashes and bazooka-liken throws had led the Bills to six straight wins before’s Sunday’s loss. Two weeks ago it was a hook-and-ladder TD lateral in the snow from teammate Amari Cooper in which he received credit for a TD pass and a TD reception on the same play. On Sunday in Los Angeles, he added 82 yards rushing to a mighty 342 yards passing.

This has led his fans to cover their eyes as he smashes into opponents or the turf. Bills fans know that their success is untranslatable without Allen, who’s now considered the favourite for MVP with four games left. Career backup Mitch Trubisky sits behind Allen, which is like Pete Buttigieg backing up Elon Musk.

Allen has been the beneficiary of the NFL taking the target off QBs as the 2020s dawned. “In act of mercy or perhaps to juice offence, the NFL took pity on the athletic QBs. ‘It feels like the NFL is in a moment when a defender can get called for roughing the passer or unnecessary roughness simply by breathing hard on the QB,” writes Joe Mahoney of SB Nation. “It’s a reason why the career longevity for running QBs like Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields, Josh Allen, and Taysom Hill should be much longer the career lengths of some of the previous elite dual-threat QBs’”.

This was all written before Sunday’s epic personal offence total in a losing effort against the Rams— just the third defeat all season for the Bills. At one point they trailed by 17 before rallying to lose by just two.

Perhaps the only thing holding back Allen from a title now is the game strategy of HC Sean McDermott and the coaches of the Bills— as their fans know only too well since the last-second disaster against KC in the 2022 AFC final when McDermott couldn’t kill off 13 seconds at the end of the game. Allowing the Chiefs to come back for a win and a trip to the Super Bowl.

Sunday he and his OC Joe Brady wasted a time-out at the conclusion of a monumental comeback that prevented the Bills getting a shot at a game-winning field goal. It was not the first time the seventh-year head coach had muffed game-ending strategy this season. Losses to Houston and Baltimore also featured faulty game management. Otherwise the Bills might be undefeated in 2024.

But we won’t know for a month, at least, whether that’s enough of a drag on Superman’s cape to prevent a Super Bowl appearance. For now, Bills fans in Canada and the U.S. can only marvel at what’s happened to the farm boy from rural California who is both irresistible object and unstoppable force in the same body.