|
Karl
Senior Member
USA
914 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 24 2003 : 10:24:29 PM
|
Article from - Vangard Online
HOUSE OF LIES COLLAPSES
Saturday, February 15, 2003
•A Quarter Of A Century After The First FIFA Age-grade Tournament Was Staged, The Essence Has Been Thoroughly Defeated, As ‘Super Powers’ Confess To Decades Of Cheating. Commentators Are Asking: Should FIFA Not Put A Stop To The Charade? Report by ADEMOLA OLAJIRE
A landmark statement is issued from the headquarters of world football-governing body, FIFA, in Zurich, Switzerland. FIFA President Sepp Blatter, his eyes blazing, and flanked by the General Secretary Urs Linsi, the youth competitions chairman Jack Warner and CAF President Issa Hayatou tells the world: “In view of recent developments and confessions by some countries to shameless cheating in under-age championships, FIFA hereby annuls the triumphs of those stated nations in its previous competitions and scraps the FIFA U-17 and FIFA U-20 competitions forthwith.
“The names of those nations shall be expunged from the list of FIFA’s champions and they will be banned from all FIFA championships for the next three years. That means they will not be eligible to participate in the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2003, the remaining African Nations Cup 2004 qualifiers, the 2004 Olympic Games qualifiers, the 2006 Nations Cup and World Cup qualifiers and all other competitions in the FIFA calendar”.
Hello, Nigerian football fans, the statement above has not come yet. But it may not be long in coming, after the country’s sports and social development minister Steven Ibn Akiga and the deputy youth and sports minister of Ghana, Joe Aggrey admitted that their different nations have cheated unabashedly at previous junior and youth tournaments.
Aggrey, fondly called ‘Big Joe’ was for decades a respected sports journalist in the west African country of 20 million people before he was made deputy sports minister at the inception of the administration of President John Kufour in January 2001. A degree holder in journalism, Aggrey had covered many major international championships, including the Olympic Games and the football World Cup finals, and is known to have expressed similar sentiments before he was appointed.
But many were stupefied that someone that high up in government, especially in an African continent where leaders shy away from the truth, could come out in the open to indict his own nation.
“Ghana have cheated in the past, and now bearing the fruits of seeds sown some years ago. In the past, we were cheating and winning, but the right thing must be done now. The plans of the government to develop a new youth policy is welcome.
“Years of lopsided policies, which put premium on juvenile football, had adversely affected standards of the senior national team, the Black Stars”, Aggrey said in the landmark confession that shook the whole of Ghana and Africa.
But the veteran journalist says he has nothing to regret about the statement because it is the whole truth and it is only by facing the truth that Ghana can overcome the trend of performing well at age-grade championships only to falter when it mattered at senior level.
Ghana’s U-17 side, the Black Starlets won the first world championship in that age grade in 1991, in Italy. The likes of Nii Odartey Lamptey, Sebastian Barnes and Samuel Osei Kuffour were prominent members of that squad. The Starlets reached the Final of the next competition staged in Japan, only to lose to Nigeria, their bitter west African rivals.
The Starlets then won again in Ecuador two years later, with Nigeria eliminated in the quarter finals. In 1997 in Egypt, Ghana again reached the Final, only to lose to Brazil.
The Brazilians retained the title in New Zealand in 1999, but the Starlets did not end up empty-handed. In fact they were acknowledged to have played the best football on the way to losing to the Brazilians on penalties in the semi and winning the bronze.
At U-20 level, the Black Satellites have been equally impressive. They reached the Final of the competition in 1993, and even went ahead of Brazil in the championship game in Sydney before lack of concentration in the second period cost them the game. In 1999, they reached the quarter finals in Nigeria, beaten on penalties by Spain. And two years ago, they reached the Final once more, but again lost to a red-hot Argentina right in the latter’s backyard.
Since 1992, when the International Olympic Committee finally agreed to a proposal by FIFA to have only U-23 players feature at the Games, in order that the event did not continue to rival the football World Cup competition, African teams have been performing well. Why?
Ghana’s Black Meteors were the first ones out there, at Barcelona 92, and in classic manner won the bronze. In 1996, Nigeria, featuring the likes of N****wo Kanu, Danile Amokachi, Emmanuel Amuneke, Austin Okocha, Celestine Babayaro, Tijjani Babangida and Victor Ikpeba who had all gained experience at senior level, won the football gold at the Centennial Games in Atlanta, USA.
In Sydney, at the Millennium Games in 2000, Cameroon’s U-23 side retained the title for Africa. How come that it was only when the event became an age-grade show that Africa started making impact?
Commentators have for many years alluded to the fact that African federations were cheating the world by fielding over-aged players at junior and youth tournaments. And nowhere has the criticism been greater than within the African continent itself. Top sports journalists have refused to be impressed by the performances at junior level that are never replicated at senior championships.
Nigeria’s sports and social development minister, Steven Ibn Akiga would however go into the history books as the most senior government official to admit the charade. Speaking to a foreign news agency penultimate week, the 54 year old former footballer and hockey player said: “ We have for a while now been fielding players far above the ages agreed for some international age group competitions. This has not helped our football and as such we must now fight against these age cheats”.
The bombshell from Ghana and Nigeria, by far the leading nations in the U-17 category and two of the leaders in the U-20 and U-23 categories, represent a crumbling of an edifice of lies that has stood erect for decades now.
Former FIFA President Joao Havelange was the person who first mooted the idea of youth and junior tournaments. He wanted the so-called lesser soccer powers to bridge the gap with the rest of the world by having a forum to prepare their young stars for greater challenges.
His dream materialized when the first FIFA U-20 tournament held in Tunisia – an African country- June 27-July 10 1977. The competition was staged in three Tunisian cities – Tunis, Sousse and Sfax as an experimental tournament, just as the second edition held in Japan in 1979.
Hosts Tunisia got a 6-0 hiding from Mexico and Morocco were whipped 3-0 by Uruguay while Iran lashed Cote d’Ivoire 3-0, but Havelange was not discouraged and two years later in Japan, Algeria would reach the quarter finals even though a 5-0 thrashing by eventual winners Argentina – complete with Diego Maradona and Ramon Diaz – was the reward
Egypt also made it to the quarter finals in 1981 in Australia ( bumped by England), but Nigeria created the first real sensation when in their very first FIFA tournament finals, they edged the then Soviet Union 1-0 and drew with a Marco van Basten-inspired Netherlands.
The likes of Tarila Okorowanta, Dahiru Sadi, Dehinde Akinlotan, Chris Anigala, Edema Benson became well-known in the football world.
Two years later, the Nigerians would consolidate by reaching the semi finals in USSR, before losing 2-0 to the rampaging Brazilians. But they proved the 1983 defeat of the Soviets was no fluke, by taking the bronze off the hosts in a penalty shoot-out.
A poor outing in 1987 in Chile was followed by what remains till this day the best effort so far at that level, in 1989. A team comprising the likes of Mutiu Adepoju, Dimeji Lawal, Christopher Nwosu, the late Tunde Charity, Oladunni Oyekale, Christopher Ohenhen, Emeka Amadi, Angus Ikeji, Samuel Elijah and Nduka Ugbade won the silver in Saudi Arabia, second only to a Portuguese team that had it all.
In a wonderful manner, in 1985, the U-16 team had traveled to China for what was the first championship in that category and won fair and square, beating Germany in a classic final inside the Workers Stadium in Beijing.
That tournament would transmute to the U-17 event, the first championship of which Ghana won in Italy six years later.
In 1987, the U-16 team that Nigeria sent to Canada to defend their China title was so impressive that the great Pele openly supported them to win the thriller of a final against the Soviet Union in Ontario. But the sensational side would finish behind the Russians after penalty shoot-out, the Europeans’ cause having been hugely helped by Brazilian referee Jose Wright.
Nigeria, twice winners at cadet level, bronze and silver winners at U-20 level, winners of Olympic gold, twice silver-medal winners at cadet level, quarter finalists at Olympic Games and; Ghana, twice winners at cadet level, bronze winners at Olympic Games, twice runners-up at cadet level, fourth-place finishers at U-20 level, twice silver medallists at U-20 level, are truly the super powers of under-age football.
Admission by both countries, in a spate of two weeks, that they have been cheating all along, draws the rug from under the competitions and questions the essence of continued staging of those tournaments.
For two decades, Nigerian soccer fans have lived under the guilty conscience of celebrating victories that they knew were achieved in fraudulent manner. In 1983, just as the U-20 team was about to leave for Mexico for the FIFA world youth championship, a scam broke on the fact that some players were above the age limit. Consequently the team Captain, Charity Ikhidero, among others, was dropped.
Amazingly, the same Charity Ikhidero ( may his soul rest in peace) was repackaged as Tunde Charity in 1989 for the same age-grade competition. That was six years after he was discovered to be too old for the same level!
In 1985, players like Mark Odu, Michael Dominic, Andrew Uwe and Mark Anunobi were known to far too old for the U-20 level in which they played. Former tennis star Nduka ‘The Duke’ Odizor once confessed to friends that Mark Odu ( who died last year) was his classmate in school!
Suspicions of many years of unclean dealings were exposed in December 1989 when FIFA slammed a two-year ban on Nigeria after it discovered that there were discrepancies in the documented ages of three players who had featured for the country at previous youth championships: Dahiru Sadi, Samson Siasia and Andrew Uwe.
Dahiru Sadi was in the team that represented the nation at the FIFA world youth championship in 1983 – the first time a Nigerian team would play in a FIFA tournament. Many would even recall that he scored the goal that gave the Flying Eagles the African title at the expense of Cote d’Ivoire in Lagos before the trip to central America.
Samson Siasia was to be on that trip, but he had to take his final exam papers in Saint Finbarrs secondary school, Lagos and by the team he arrived in Mexico, the team had been eliminated. He was said to be 17 then.
Siasia would get his chance two years later, as a member of the team that won bronze in the Soviet Union. Andrew Uwe was Captain of that team.
But as the saying goes, a lie can sustain for 20 years, but the truth will always catch up in one single day. All three were part of the Nigerian squad to the Olympic Games in 1988 – the last Games where teams were allowed to field their best players without no age limit.
The fellows who sent the documents listed ages for the players different from the ones that had been ascribed for them at youth competitions!
Of the three, only Samson Siasia had a great career with the senior team. Uwe dropped out of contention after the 1990 Nations Cup finals in Algeria and Sadi was not in the picture after the 1988 Olympics.
Come to that, not too many of those players who had shone at junior and youth levels have been fantastic at senior level. The bulk of the mainstream of the renaissance, which turned around Nigeria football in the 1990s and took it to the top drawer of the international game, did not play at youth or junior level.
Not Emmanuel Amuneke ( he only played at U-23 level, at the 1991 All-Africa Games in Cairo); not Daniel Amokachi ( who at 17 was the youngest player in the Nigerian team to the 1990 Nations Cup finals); not Finidi George; not Rashidi Yekini ( the best striker to have come out of this country, who emerged top scorer in two consecutive Nations Cup competition and whose goals took Nigeria to her first World Cup finals); not goalkeeper Peter Rufai ( widely acknowledged as the best safe hands to have been produced here); not Austin Eguavoen, one of the best defenders Nigeria ever had; not Benedict Iroha , also one of the best defenders to have come out of here.
Instead, the fore guards of the junior and youth teams end up in unsavoury leagues abroad and simply fizzle out at the time they are expected to be reaching the age of puberty!
How much impression did these people make before going into oblivion: Oladunni Oyekale, Dimeji Lawal, Philip Osondu, Jimoh Balogun, Christopher Nwosu, Angus Ikeji, Emeka Amadi, Hamlet Eze, Anthony Emedofu, and so many others that we cannot easily remember here?
The truth is, they were at their peak when we all assumed they were small boys!
But the way they shine at youth and junior levels have somehow elevated the way the world sees Nigeria and Ghana. And in societies where economic depression, social dislocation and political banditry take the center stage, anything at all to celebrate is welcome.
When Ghana won the U-17 title for the first time in 1991, the whole nation went into delirium. President Jerry John Rawlings, who was hosting 84 foreign ministers from the non-aligned countries, called off all meetings and declared two days’ national holiday.
A million fans were waiting for the players at the Accra Kotoka Airport. “ People were so overjoyed they very nearly crushed us to death”, said defender Samuel Kuffour.
Kuffour has been at German club, Bayern Munich for almost 10 years now, and guess what? He is still 27!
Otto Pfister, an itinerant German coach who had served as national coach of Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo Democratic Republic and Ghana in 22 years of working in Africa, and who led the Black Starlets to the 1991 FIFA junior title, said: “ Young boys here think about football 24 hours a day and play for at least eight – whether on clay, rough fields or dusty streets.
“They develop their skills naturally, without any specific training, and end up with superb technique and ability on the ball. They are also fast and tricky, and can feint well with their bodies.
“Africa and Brazil have by far the best young footballers in the world – on a technical level they are superb. And technique is what it takes to make a good player”.
“In Africa there is often only one way for many young lads to escape from poverty and to make their way up the social scale – football. Youngsters want to become stars and to play in a top European league.
“That is their main aim and they will do anything to achieve it. Let me give you an example: while I was coaching in Ghana I once told my team to be ready for training at three o’clock in the morning. At half past tow they were all assembled and ready to go.
“They want to learn and they want to play for the national team. They know that in their country a national team player is a hero and enjoys a level of prestige that is not comparable to that in Europe.
“Another positive point for young players in Ghana is that there are many good coaches in the country who help develop the available talent and above all want to let them play this policy pays off”, Pfister told FIFA magazine in 1999.
What he did not remember to say or was not fully in the picture of, was that the football federation helps in ‘reducing’ the age of good players so that they can represent the country at junior and youth tournaments, and help achieve victory, which rubs off on the federation.
The question to ask is: where are all those good, great players? Most of them have burnt out, ambushed by age at a time they were expected to be reaching their peak!
Where is Nii Odartey Lamptey – voted the Most Valuable Player at the FIFA U-17 championship in Italy in 1991, and also at the FIFA U-20 championship in Australia in 1993?
Lamptey was so good that many expected him to take over from Abedi ‘Pele’ Ayew, the best player to have come out of Ghana. Deft, nimble-footed, and blessed with sharp vision, Odartey Lamptey was exceptional. But after playing in the FIFA U-17 and U-20, and winning a bronze at the Barcelona Olympics, his football went downhill. He tried a few tricks at the 1994 Nations Cup finals in Tunisia but could take Ghana nowhere. He was not even impressive at the 1996 finals in South Africa.
Where are players like Emmanuel Bentil (captain of the side that won the FIFA U-17 title in Ecuador in 1995, and Issaka Awudu, who was one of the best players in that team?
Last year, Nigeria sports and social development minister Steven Ibn Akiga banned players who had features in a higher level from coming downhill to represent the country.
“I don’t see the sense in a player who has played at U-17 level coming down to play for the U-15, or someone who has featured in the U-20 playing for the U-17 after that. It does not make sense”, insisted Akiga.
His action knocked the bottom off a plan by the football federation to put together a massive rescue programme for the second leg of the African Youth Championship qualifier against the Moroccan U-20 team. The likes of Femi Opabunmi, goalkeeper Austin Ejide and Bartholomew Ogbeche could not make the trip after Akiga put his foot down.
Having lost the first leg in Nigeria 2-1, the NFA believed the second leg could only be won by a total operation prosecuted by the country’s best, at least those who fall officially within that age.
Akiga had his way and the team eventually crashed out, only able to draw the second leg 1-1. While some hailed the minister for his decision, many vilified him as the man who made Nigeria fail to qualify for a championship which she had won four times before.
The same public opprobrium awaits anyone who takes decisions that could reduce anticipated victories at youth and junior tournaments, for in a country bound of over 250 ethnic groups bound together only when any of the national teams are playing, it is hard to countenance losing grip of an event that was so much under the belt, or talk of a programme that would discountenance ‘winning-at-all-cost’.
Already, the Ghanaian public is beginning to doubt the wisdom in the new policy, which has seen players well screened for age grade competitions. Ghana, world champions at U-17 level twice and twice runners-up, and twice runners-up at U-20, have failed to reach the final qualifying round for the African Junior Championship and will neither be in Swaziland for the continental show in May nor in Finland for the world championship in June.
Also, the U-20 team, Black Satellites failed to reach the semi finals at the African Youth Championship in Burkina Faso in January, meaning they will not be at the world championship in the United Arab Emirates in March/April.
But Joe Aggrey calls on Ghanaians to welcome the new dawn as it will ultimately pay off and see Ghana reaching the World Cup finals for the first time.
It is indeed amazing, that despite many years of domination at youth level, Ghana have not been able to qualify for the World Cup finals. Where do the products of those age competitions disappear to?
It is also instructive that despite qualifying for the last three World Cup finals, Nigeria – the other cheating super power- has experienced diminishing returns.
In 1994, led by Rashidi Yekini, Peter Rufai, Daniel Amokachi, Emmanuel Amuneke, Finidi George, Benedict Iroha, Austin Eguavoen, Uche Okechukwu, Chidi Nwanu, Sunday Oliseh ( who never played at junior or youth level), the Super Eagles reached the second round in USA, on their very debut, beating Bulgaria and Greece, and narrowly losing to Argentina, inspired by a drugged Maradona. Italy would thank their stars for winning a second round game they had nearly lost.
1998 was worse. The defeat of Spain in their first game was sheer luck, and the win over Bulgaria in the second was no less. Defeats by Paraguay and Denmark were well deserved.
2002 was worst. Defeated by Argentina and Sweden, the Eagles came back with a solitary point earned in a draw with England, failing to reach the second round for the first time.
When his wards suffered a similar fate at the African Youth Championship in Burkina Faso in January, South African U-20 team coach, Boebie Williams had these to say:
“I’m amazed at the physique of players from certain countries. We are not living in the fourth world in South Africa and these boys are bigger than us. What are these players eating? Some extra batteries, acid or what?
“I find it strange that some players have admitted they are as old as 24 and 26. Who is responsible for this? Shouldn’t it be the people in charge of the competition?
“Are we really trying to uplift the reputation of African football? It is this dishonesty that has destroyed us in the past”.
Very simply put.
© 2003. Vanguard Media Ltd.
|
Karl |
|
HOUSE OF LIES COLLAPSES
