Super Eagles Vs Super Falcons: An Up-to-date Analysis of the Hottest Football Debate in Nigeria

The football industry in Nigeria has recently been obsessed with Super Eagles Vs Super Falcons debate.

Should NFF continue to pay much attention to Super Eagles and less to Super Falcons as it is today? Which of these national teams has been able to deliver to Nigeria the much desired positive image among the committee of Nations?

Ideally, you may say Super Eagles is a bigger brand. Maybe because men football has a lot more followers than women football, so Super Eagles are likely to attract more positive responses from just little achievements.

But that's not exactly how football works in real life. The more a national team win crucial games, the more the country gets better placed on the FIFA World rankings and that's what attracts more fans for the country.

It's not easily weighed in the balance as we ran several tests and extracted relevant info from the records; to help you understand as well as determine which of the teams possess better comparative advantage for building Nigeria's brand image. We present the Analysis below:

1.     Percentage representation of football followers across the world

- Men football - 71.3%

- Women football - 26.1%

- No gender preferences - 2.6%

A lot more people follow men's football than the women. That means Super Eagles could deliver better exposure for brand Nigeria with just little achievements.

2. Which of the two national teams has delivered to Nigeria better brand exposure across the world?

Super Eagles	Super Falcons
FIFA World cup participation: Appearanced 6 times since 1949 Rated - 0.12% Achievements: Qualified for the round of 16 (3 times) Won Olympics Men Soccer Gold medal once in 1996.	FIFA Women's World cup participation:  Appeared 6 times since 1991  Rated - 100% Achievements: Played in the Group stage 6 times BBC World Woman footballer of the year 2015: Asisat Oshoala.

The data above shows that Super Eagles may have delivered better exposure for brand Nigeria than Super Falcons - at the World level.

 3. Which of the two national teams has delivered to Nigeria a better brand exposure across Africa?

Super Eagles	Super Falcons
African Cup of Nations participation: Appeared 17 times since 1963 Rated - 42% Achievements: Champions of AFCON 3 times in 1980; 1994; 2013. Won African Footballer of the year 6 times: Rasheed Yekini - 1990; 1993 Emmanuel Amunike - 1994 Nwankwo Kanu - 1996; 1999 Victor Ikpeba - 1997	African Women Championship participation: Appeared 12 times since 1991 Rated - 98% Achievements: Champions of AWC 8 times in 1995; 1998; 2000; 2002; 2004; 2006; 2010; 2014. Won African Woman footballer of the year 8 times: - Mercy Akide - 2001 - Cynthia Uwak - 2006; 2007 - Pepetual Nkwocha - 2004; 2005; 2010; 2011.  - Asisat Oshoala - 2014

Super Falcons definitely dominated African Women football with lots of trophies and Awards, which delivered to Nigeria a far better exposure across Africa, than Super Eagles.

4.Which of the two national teams possess the potentials to deliver to Nigeria a better brand exposure in the future?

Super Eagles	Super Falcons
Recent Support Resources: Quality Coaching Crew - 50% International Friendly Matches - 60% Quality Training Camp - 65% Financial Reward - 95% Recent Results: 2013 AFCON (Champions) 2014 World cup (round of 16). 2015 None qualification for AFCON	Recent Support Resource: Quality Coaching Crew- 35% International Friendly Matches - 15% Quality Training Camp - 25% Financial Rewards - 25% Recent Results: 2014 AWC (Champions) 2015 Women World Cup (Group Stage). 2015 BBC World Woman Footballer of year

Though, Super Eagles seems to be a bigger brand that can deliver a better exposure to Nigeria with little achievements; Super Falcons has the potentials of producing better results if given more resources.

Therefore, Super Falcons offers a more comparative advantage for Nigeria. Of course, it isn't possible to let go of Super Eagles, since men's football is more popular across the world. All NFF need do is to offer Super Falcons a relatively balanced share of its resources and leverage on the result the women's team will achieve in future.