By Steve Alabi

Women football in Africa is set to receive a huge boost with the introduction of a continental club championship for national female league champion clubs. The cheering news was broken last week by the Confederation of African Football, CAF. The continental governing body announced that it will launch a Women’s Champions League next year in a bold step to accentuate female club football in the continent. With this initiative, the female game is not going to be the same again.
The game for the fair gender is relatively younger in Africa than the leading continents of Europe, North America and South America. Long before Africa found the courage to let its women take up the physically tasking game, Europe, North America and South America had embraced it on a fairly large scale. The results show in the dominance of the FIFA Women’s World Cup by two of them, North America and Europe, which, between them, have won seven of the eight editions of the competition. While Africa is still lagging behind, Asia has found a way to join the frontrunners with Japan the odd winners out of the eight world champions.
The early starters derive their leading position from thriving national and regional competitions. The United States, the most successful country in international female football with four World Cup titles, has had a thriving league for close to 30 years, not counting the older collegiate soccer that is more competitive than many national leagues. Europe’s strength is anchored on the UEFA Women’s Champions League contested annually by the champion clubs from countries affiliated with the European governing body. In South America, the regional governing body, CONMEBOL organises the Copa Libertadores Femenina for the league champions of its member states.
The CAF Women’s Champions League is a long journey from the early days of female football in Africa. Nigeria must justly take the pride of position as the pioneer of the game in the Black Continent. Daring women were already playing the game in Nigeria in the early seventies but no formal organisation took place until 1978 when Princess Bola Jegede and other pioneers formed the Nigeria Female Football Organising Association. The pioneer clubs included Jegede Babes of Lagos owned by Princess Bola Jegede, Ufuoma Babes of Warri owned by Elder E. N. Khujebola, Kakanfo Babes of Abeokuta owned by Chief M. K. O. Abiola and Larry Angels of Port Harcourt owned by Prince Lawrence Ezeh. The NFA bought into the game later and introduced the first nationwide competition in 1990.
In the old Ondo State, the likes of Otunba Omolade Oluwateru and Daisi Oluyi encouraged the takeoff of female football in the eighties. Secondary schools were the breeding grounds for the early efforts. Sisters of St. Louis, the proprietors of Mater Dei Vocational Centre, Akure also motivated their wards to participate in the competitions that Oluwateru and Daisi Oluyi sponsored. The big break however came from a cocoa merchant, Tony Anthony who took his club, Tony Anthony Babes to the elite stage in Nigeria. Today’s Sunshine Queens are worthy successors of these proud pioneering efforts.
Thirty years after the first nationwide competition in Nigeria, the country boasts of three female leagues under the control of the Nigeria Women Football League Board, the NWFL Premiership, the second tier known as the NWFL Championship and the third tier known as the NWFL Nationwide. Elsewhere in Africa, the game, which gradually took root from the eighties, is thriving reasonably. In Ghana, a national championship has been playing out since 2006. In South Africa, there has been a Women’s League since 2009.
Africa first took part in the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991 when Nigeria’s Amazons, the precursors of today’s Falcons, represented it. As the pointsman of the Female and Youth Football Committee of the NFA then, I superintended over the camping of the team in Makurdi and brought them to play an international friendly against a Dutch side in Akure before the World Cup. Nigeria’s efforts led to the introduction of the Africa Cup of Nations for Women in 1991. Only two countries have won the competition since inception, Nigeria, ten times and Equatorial Guinea, twice.
The introduction of the CAF Women’s Champions League will make Africa the fourth confederation to run a continental championship for women. The female game is expected to gain from the huge sponsorship fund available to the game in Africa. Gone are the days when the game was played in poverty in the continent. There is in place a sponsorship package catering for every CAF competition. The men’s Champions League doles out money in graduated form with the winners taking home $2.5 million and the fourth in group stage $550,000. Such fund will further energise the women’s game. There is also the added advantage of taking part in the FIFA Women’s Club World Cup newly introduced by the world body.
Our Sunshine Queens must take advantage of these new opportunities. The competition will kick off in next year, which means this year’s Premiership will be the qualifying competition for the inaugural edition. Those who run our club must quickly adjust their approach to the game and get us a ticket to Africa. Imagine what this can do to the totality of the game in the Sunshine State. History beckons. Let us again be part of history.