Those who know better should do better

By Steve Alabi
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When a person whose profession is not sports takes up sports as a passion, he has a duty to know the turf he is invading. Of the few professions that can easily be invaded by others, sports and journalism appear to be the most vulnerable. Anyone with some proficiency in writing easily ascribes journalistic skills to himself even if he knows nothing about the basic rudiments and rules of the pen profession. A mere ability to emcee an event suddenly transmutes the owner into a broadcaster even if he knows nothing about broadcasting. Worse than these is sports which everyone seems to know so well that the professionals, are in most cases, left stranded in their own field!

The fact that sports are entirely based on talent does not remove sports from the dignity of being a profession, complete with its own body of knowledge. As the National Sports Policy of 2009 puts it, successful organisation of sports requires effective and efficient management skills and structures. Effective and efficient management skills are not sports skills that talent can easily excite. These are skills that can mainly be acquired by formal education, which is open to both the sports talents and any interested person. But I must point out that these skills are different from leadership skills which, like talent, are innate in nature.

Sports, as a profession, consists of more than performance. Coaching and the organization of sports form the main plank of the profession. As João Saldanha, who piloted the Brazilian team of Pele, Tostao and Garrincha through the qualifying rounds to the 1970 World Cup, showed, you can be a top coach without ever having played the game at the top if you learnt coaching. Coaching is a job that is to be learnt; it is not a talent. A sports talent may enjoy a head start over an interested but untalented person but knowledge, rather than talent, is the operative factor.

Here in Nigeria, the late Amodu Shaibu is a good example of a sports professional whose playing career never reached dizzying heights but whose coaching career was a huge success. He featured only for Dumez and BCC Lions but was not particularly outstanding before injury cut his playing career short. He ranks among the best ever three top Nigerian coaches, along with the duo of Stephen Keshi and Adegboye Onigbinde. Of the trio, only Keshi played the game to the top. Even he had to imbibe some critical knowledge and experience under the tutelage of Onigbinde and Shaibu. As in other cases, the critical factor responsible for success was not talent but knowledge.

The sports administrators of the early days were volunteers who provided the required leadership for success and left the daily organization and management in the hands of a well oiled bureaucracy. Whoever was Chairman of the National Sports Commission, including the great duo of Chief Gabriel Akin Deko and Samuel Ogbemudia, depended on the expertise and experience of the efficient bureaucracy headed by Dr. Isaac Akioye. Up until the time of Dr. Amos Adamu, the Commission ran efficiently on the wheels of the professionals.

A similar arrangement was largely in place in the states. Here in Ondo State, the volunteer sports administrators relied on the technocrats like the late Adesegun Erinle to direct affairs on daily basis. Only on two occasions were the administrators also the managers. Both ended in unmitigated disaster.

The volunteer sports administrators can have great ideas but it is the professional sports managers who should run the show on a daily basis. A great mistake is made when the game is taken from the professional sports managers and given to those who merely find themselves in position by connection or election to run on daily basis. The end result is not likely to be palatable.

One is therefore not surprised at the topsy turvy nature national sports are run these days. Every Sports Minister wants to run the show whether he has the requisite knowledge or not. The worst is the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF. You hardly hear of the Secretary General who should be the main organizer of the game. Many do not even know his name. All you hear are Amaju Pinnick, Seyi Akinwumi and the rest of the Board. I once sat on that Board, and in our time, we were required to meet statutorily. You may head a delegation but none of us participated in the daily running of the game.

The times have not really changed. The stakes are higher, yes, but the objectives remain basically to train well, compete to the best of our ability and win laurels. The volunteer sports administrators, even if they were once professional sports managers, should not descend into the arena to run sports on daily basis. That is the duty of the professional sports managers. The earlier we readjust to this, the better for our sports.