Seventeen years after Nwankwo Kanu was crowned CAF African Player of the Year, no Nigerian footballer has ruled Africa since then.
Being the most prestigious individual award in African football, almost two decades without the award is unacceptable.
In this regard, this writer seeks to understand why Nigeria’s stars continue to under perform on the big stage.
On January 7, the Gabonese player Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was crowned as CAF African Player of the Year for the first time. However, while his rival and runner up on the night Yaya Toure vented his anger over the shattering of his dream of a record breaking five CAF Africa Best player of the year awards, Nigerians could only watch helplessly as the top player’s award eluded a player from the country for another year.
The decline in the nation’s most loved sport has left many baffled, as the nation dominated the award in its early stages, raking in five awards from 1992 (inception) to 1999. The likes of the Nwankwo Kanu (1996, 1999), Rashidi Yekini (1993), Emmanuel Amunike (1994) and Victor Ikpeba (1998) have all gone home with the glamorous award.
Fast track to the 21st century, the closest the country has come is a second place finish in 2013, when Chelsea star John Obi Mikel finished behind Yaya Toure.
But aside from the player of the year award, Nigeria for the first time did not produce a player in CAF’s XI. How bad can it get?
The African footballer of the year award is open to African players all over the world but in the last two decades, winners of the award are mostly players based in Europe and this is where many Nigerians ply their trade.
Yet in over a decade they have failed to match the performance of their counterparts from other countries and the reasons for this are not difficult to find.
Obviously, one major reason is the quality of clubs in Europe that Nigerian players rush to sign contracts with. This affects their performances and as well as determining their output.
“When the right offer comes, then I’ll leave but not for me to partake in “SLAVE TRADE” football whereby players just go for the sake of they want to play abroad. For me, I’ll not be part of that” Heartland skipper Chinedu Efugh said in an interview.
It is believed that many Nigerian players in their quest to land a contract outside the shores of the country jump at any offer abroad. This has contributed immensely to the decline.
Some football enthusiasts have also tied the nation’s woes in recent times to poor developmental programmes by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
“We don’t have developmental programmes in this country and the administrators are not doing anything. The administrators should sit down and think about what I’ve said,” ex-coach Chief Adegboye Onigbinde said in a chat.
According to him, this has hindered the nation’s ability to unearth new talent that will be a valuable asset to the senior national team.
The decline in the country’s performance on the big stage is reflected in the national team being placed 66th in the latest FIFA ranking (14th in Africa) and the management have had their own fair share of blame. It is believed that the tussle for leadership and the politics in the football federation has deeply affected the growth of the game.
However, Nigeria has continued to make giant steps at the junior level, winning the Under 17 FIFA World Cup back to back and winning the Under 20 and U-23 Africa trophies. This success has been attributed to the abundance of individual skills.
The problem has, however, been how to translate these skills into solid team work at the senior level, and with the likes of Aubameyang, Toure, Mane, Mahrez and several others doing very well week-in-week-out in Europe, Nigeria’s woes are likely to continue if something is not done to restore the good old days.
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