Good morning Everyone!
This is one of them posts you’d rather start with “what’s good about the morning?”. But seeing I haven’t lost any bit of my home training, irrespective of the madness that has become our current reality, ill rather vocalize my grievance and channel it in the right direction.
So first things first. Have we all now come to terms with the truth that Coach Yema was not the problem at Enyimba? You can paper over cracks and give a dog a bad name to kill it, but with time, the veil will lift, and the reality will be laid bare. Ekwueme and Kanu fired him to mask their own administrative incompetence.
Shortly after Stanley Eguma was appointed Head Coach, I infamously ended my blog on the day with “Smile today because you will cry tomorrow”. Not necessarily because I have a problem with Eguma, (and I do have issues with him, more on that later) but because a new head coach doesn’t cure the board’s cluelessness.
You can walk into Ariaria Main Market, find someone with 5+ years of trade experience, and appoint them Enyimba’s Chairman. They’d most likely excel. Why? These entrepreneurs have grown businesses, achieving tangible success. Measurable success. So on what basis should Kanu and Ekwueme, who both have grown absolutely nothing except personal playing careers, be incharge of Enyimba?
The bar for being a Nigerian Premier League club owner is woefully low. Many owners are glorified errand boys, collecting player salaries, bonuses etc from the Government and remitting to the players. This responsibility has turned them into gods. That’s not even the issue: the issue that this Enyimba management can’t even manage the basics: paying salaries, match bonuses, and player welfare.
I saw Brown Ideye’s interview and honestly it wasn’t any different from what I’ve heard from within the club. Players are hungry. “Hunger” for Professional Footballers of Nigeria’s most successful football team. Yet these boys are made to go on gurelsome away trips and from the comfort of our sofas we are expecting wins. Now here’s the fun part – However bad you think the revelations in that interview was, it doesn’t even remotely scratch the surface.
I challenge the Enyimba Administration to debunk these statements. I heard recently that the players were told that nothing had come in from the Government since the start of the season and everything that has been spent so far in prosecuting their games especially in the Continent were the personal funds of Kanu and Ekwueme. And that Governor Otti has pretty much abandoned the team.
Perhaps it’s time to write an open letter to Dr Alex Otti. Perhaps he needs to be reminded that Enyimba is all we Aba boys have. We cannot have people who know nothing of football management destroy the work put in all these years. Maybe the burden of bankrolling Enyimba has become unsustainable for which, the State is now open to private investors to buy up the club. That won’t be difficult. A buyer for Enyimba won’t be hard to find.
Think about it. A buyer for Enyimba means the Government gets to save the Enyimba bill and in fact, the club can begin to boast of some good numbers in the “Income” column. Enyimba has the capacity to have as much as 50 to 100 non playing staff. Who will get paid well for whatever jobs the club can generate for their staff. Very easily. One can dream right?
Back to reality – these are austere times at our club. Some of us won’t just sit idly by and do nothing. No, not as it concerns Enyimba.
Back tomorrow
Kanu Nwankwo and Ifeanyi Ekwueme are claiming that Abia State Government has abandoned the club? Meanwhile Abia Warriors are praising same Abia State Government to the high heavens for the support it receives. Between the management of the two clubs, one of them is lying.