Obi Asika is
the CEO of Storm Vision, a media content and production company in Nigeria. He
is a trained lawyer and was once into sport marketing. He was also a skillful
footballer that almost captained the English junior team to the world cup in
his ace days.
Hear Him…
A lot of
people talk football but they don’t know football. I am telling you, football
is deep. And one day, Africans will understand why they always lose out in the
world cup.
I can tell
you this because I used to represent a company called ISL. It was the largest
sport marketing company in the world and for 25 or 30 years they owned all FIFA
rights.
ISL were
running what became FIFA marketing today. If you go to the FIFA website and
check FIFA marketing, you’ll see all FIFA rights. ISL used to run all that
stuff before. But that company went bankrupt in 2002 because they were
expending, they bought the 82 sports for $12 billion and they got confused.
But I want
you to understand this; FIFA is a very serious commercial animal. FIFA is going
to be making profits, £3 to £5 billion from 2014 world cup in Brazil. So first
of all, football is business! The people that bring the biggest business are
the biggest market, which is the European market: Germany, England, France, and
Italy. How many of these countries have reached the finals at the world cup -
every one of them. The bottom-line is your commercial capacity has an impact on
your ability to win on the pitch.
There are
countries that make FIFA world cup commercially viable. Some how, these
countries must be at every of the mundial: Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy, and
England. Now, USA, Mexico and Columbia are spearheading the North American
challenge.
You see.
FIFA understands the excitement current star players like Leo Messi, Cristano
Ronaldo, and Frank Ribery can add to the party. And for these star players to
be at the world cup their countries may enjoy some advantage during play offs.
Indeed, FIFA
might also consider the African challenge and countries like Cameroon, Nigeria
and perhaps, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire may also enjoy some kind of advantage in the
African qualification series. Fans enjoy such dramatic upsets these African
sides can bring to the world cup. But for an African country to win the world
cup, it’s not possible!
When you see
an African side play and you say the Referees are being silly; the fact is,
every FIFA barged Referee have been tutored to understand the commercial value
of the world cup and how it should play out among participating countries. FIFA
would rather prefer a USA to win or perhaps, China or UAE because of their
commercial capacity.
It was a
struggle for FIFA to allow South Africa host the World cup in 2010. But for an
African country to at the mundial is something unthinkable. That alone may
cause a commercial earthquake that might shake the very foundation of FIFA and
not even Sepp Blatter would allow it happen in his tenure as FIFA President.
It’s
incredible the way many football scholars from Europe want to make us believe
that African teams aren’t good enough and no African country may yet win the
world cup in any foreseeable future.
They say
African teams lack technical and tactical dept. Since most of the players don’t
play top flight football, they find it difficult to keep up with the pace of
the game at the world cup. But the fact is, African teams have their own style
and should be allowed to express themselves. We’ve seen countries like Cameroon
defeat world champions, Argentina, in the opening match of 1990 world cup, even
with star players like Diego Maradona in that Argentinean squad - It didn’t go
down well with FIFA.
The truth
is, it isn’t about Africans inability to play the game. It is about FIFA
commercial lineage. Some scholars too have spark off series of accusations that
FIFA has sold the soul of the game to big business.
