The Bitter-sweet ending for Rivers Angels at the maiden edition of the Confederation of African Football CAF Women’s Champions League has raised questions in the minds of lovers of the women’s game in Nigeria.
Since its establishment, Rivers Angels has been producing some of the most iconic players in the history of Africa women’s football and has been a fertile recruiting ground for the dominant Super Falcons, with record nine titles.
From Uche Eucharia (first coach and player to win Women’s AFCON) to Chioma Ajunwa, (pioneer captain and Nigeria Olympic gold medalist) and Perpetua Nkwocha to Asisat Oshoala (combined eight-time winners of Africa Women’s Player of the Year), the club have a huge catalogue of stars that speak volumes.
As Nigeria’s flag bearers, the Angels from Port Harcourt went to Cairo, Egypt with high hopes of extending their national team continental dominance to the club competitions. But they were shocked by two defeats in as many games against ASFAR (3-0) and Mamelodi Sundowns (1-0).
They found their bearings in the last group match, trouncing Vihiga Queens from Kenya 4-0 but it was too late to keep them in the competition.
Chairman of Save Women Football Foundation, Moses Bako x-raying the journey of Rivers Angels to the land of the pharaohs said Rivers Angels may have crashed out of the CAF Women’s Champions League, but that there are positive lessons to be learnt from the exit. In this interview, Bako takes a critical look at factor affecting women’s football and proffers solutions. Join us as Bako gives his views, happy reading.
Rivers Angels early exit:
I didn’t envision an early exit for the team. It was not expected as I believed that Rivers Angels can compete with other teams outside Africa. I think their loss to ASFAR was due to fatigue and tension. The Government of Rivers State was not fair to these girls. How can you go for a competition of that magnitude and arrive there a day before your first match? This is the same way they missed the Spanish la Liga tour in 2019.
As for the match against Sundowns, it clearly showed that they were under pressure to win and did not take the match easy. They were not settled, lost composure and became a shadow of themselves.
Technical input of the coaches:
At times we don’t know reasons why some players that should have been fielded are left out of a game, but if the players were all ok, then we need to blame the coach for leaving aggressive players like Damilola Koku out of the first and second games.
Other African countries catching up and overtaking Nigeria in women’s football:
I want us to look at it in different ways. I want to say yes because when you come to the field of play both at the national level and club sides with what we have seen now, countries that we do not expect to win against us are doing so, they are catching up with us.
People are also forgetting that the time they were referring to women football in Nigeria those days, we didn’t have it like this in those days. Count how many women football clubs we have now, how many footballers were women and how was women football accepted in Nigeria? If you look at it in the scope of development, we are doing well. Lots of clubs are springing up.
In Lagos we have over 50 women clubs in the amateur ranks. If you have an average of 20 players in those amateur leagues, we are talking about having 1000 women footballers, I beg you, how do you pick a team easily from that?
So when I hear people say they didn’t come to the grassroots to pick players, I don’t understand because the players who are opportune to leave the grassroots are the people playing in the league.
I have read so many things about the women’s league and how the Nigeria Football Federation is not developing the grassroots.
From the ones that people have been able to discover players and they have gone further, what do you call that?
We don’t call it under development because that’s real development.
Generally, we are developing. Where the league was some years back is not where it is today. The times of dominance by particular clubs have passed and that means that better players are coming up every day. If our leagues are not developing, we won’t be having an exodus of players going abroad to play.
We have a large pool of players to choose from, If we relate all to the challenges we have in Nigeria, Economic, Security, it’s just a reflection of everything that is going on in the nation.
You can not completely take out women football from other aspects of the nation because none of us at this stage now can tell you that the Primary or Secondary schools we left in the past are still the same till today.
Our football is a reflection of what is happening in our society and when we take women football as an entity against the challenges of the nation. Security and economic challenges and the fact that all over the world, the attention women football gets is lesser than that of the men. So you put all these together and see how much attention women football has garnered together in Nigeria. It is glaring that there is development.
In terms of the competitive aspect of this, with all the politics involved it is what we see playing out at the national teams and club levels.
Advantages of Nigeria’s participation in the CAF Women’s Champions League:
There are great advantages from our participation in the CAF Champions League. It is an eye opener for all teams in the Nigeria Women Football League. The League will be more competitive from the beginning of the season till the blast of the last whistle.
It will spur qualified clubs to take their preparations very seriously because everybody now knows that there is a bigger stage once you emerge champions of the league.
Also, the coaches now understand that there is another dimension of football competition and they will be conscious of giving it their all in ensuring that their clubs pick the ticket.
Lessons from the tournament:
Early arrival to competition venues is key. This is where the administrators, whether state or individual must rise to their obligations of putting in place structures that will aid the smooth sail of proceedings once their clubs qualify.
If Rivers Angels had arrived in Egypt on time, they wouldn’t have been that tired in the first match. Winning the last match convincingly took the team nowhere. So, we should not leave it too late.
Technical and Psychological training is needed for the players. I believe if that was done, they would have at least drawn the second match.
Way Forward for clubs:
It is unfortunate that things are the way they are. Government rules football in Nigeria and as government comes and goes with changes, football changes too. For example, a governor that loves football makes sure things are going on well with the teams, but if another governor comes on board and he doesn’t have much interest in sports of football, there will be drastic changes. Salaries won’t be paid, things may go round and the club you think is doing well suddenly no longer lives up to expectations. That’s how it affects the NWFL, cum the challenges that we have.
However, with the CAF competitions on ground now, you see that more teams will jostle to qualify and therefore become more competitive.
Unfortunately also, Nigeria is a country where things are controlled in different ways. People complain about officiating in the NWFL. NWFL does not control officiating of matches; it is done by the NRA, so it affects.
NWFL has taken it upon itself to pay for referees’ indemnity, so that it is taken away from clubs and that is one of the agreements they entered into.
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