Nigerian High Commissioner to South Africa, Sonni Samuel Yusuf is an ever-smiling person and an ardent football follower. He is so passionate about the round leather game so much so that in spite of his busy schedule, he monitors the progress of all the national teams.
Gracious Akujobi, Prompt News Sports Correspondent had the rare opportunity to interview the Envoy recently in South Africa, during which he expressed confidence that the Super Eagles can beat any team in Brazil with the right attitude. Below are excerpts:
Prompt News: Your Excellency, as Nigerian High Commissioner to South Africa, how did you feel when the super Eagles won the African Cup of Nations on this soil?
Ambassador: Naturally I should be pleased and delighted besides the fact that I am an ardent football follower it is fortuitous for me and I am fortunate being the Nigerian High Commissioner when all these things are happening but mind you, I have always supported our national teams over the years by the virtue of serving in our various missions. There is no where I have served that our national teams have played and they have not won so this is not the first time. For example I came here from France before the 2010 World Cup, one of our friendlies with France we beat them one zero in Lille. When we qualified for the first World Cup in 1994, the nation’s cup before then when we played Burkina-Faso, we also won and I was there in Ouagadougou. So, where ever I am serving and our national teams come to play, we always win. My luck follows me everywhere and it rubs off on our national team as well.
Prompt News: Super Eagles are preparing for the World Cup, in their last friendly match they played a goalless draw with Mexico. What is your take on the team’s preparation?
Ambassador : I did not watch that match I only saw some excerpts of the match so I cannot really give you a blow-by-blow account of what the performance of the boys where. But take nothing away from the two team; those are strong teams, two footballing nation with strong football pedigree. It was a friendly quite alright but it was also an opportunity for both teams to be able to try untested players, and we saw new faces in the Nigerian team who were brought in to be tried for the World Cup. And that goes with the philosophy of coach Keshi to say his door is open to all Nigerians who can prove their worth and they will be part of the team to Brazil.
Prompt News: Nigeria is drawn in group F against Iran, Bosnia Herzegovina and Argentina. Do you think Nigeria can come out of that group?
Ambassador: I believe we can come out of that group, not only coming out of that group but my wish is that we top the group. Even with Argentina in our group it is not impossible to top our group. Argentina has just been lucky beating us which has not been by wide margin. We have also beaten them before in International tournament and even the friendly we had in Nigeria. So, I guess there is mutual respect between the two countries, I believe that this time around we will not only beat Argentina, we will top the group.
Prompt News: African teams have always stopped at the quarter finals stage at the World Cup, do you see Nigeria surpassing that this time around?
Ambassador: Nothing is impossible, I think Nigeria, the other African teams and the rest of the world are virtually on the same level with the top football playing nation .The most important thing is getting our organisation right, giving the right support for our team and of course on the part of the players being aware what is at stake and our team having the right tactical discipline. With this in place we can play any team and we can win. There is no team that is not beatable because I foresee this World Cup as one of the wide open world cups because the gap has narrowed and when you look at all the African teams that have qualified the good thing is that virtually all the players play in the same top leagues with players from other teams so the game has narrowed and I don’t think any African team will have stage fright. The days of stage fright is gone because the boys now have experience, they play in top leagues, the champions and European leagues. Not only the experience and exposure is there I believe they also have the same capacity and skill like the other players from other teams whether is Europe or South America, so the gap has narrowed.
Prompt News: You say the gap has narrowed for the players, what about the coaches, has the gap narrowed too? Do Keshi and his crew have the technical know-how to take us to the Promised Land?
Ambassador: The evidence is there for everybody to see; winning the AFcon, winning the Mandela challenge cup, qualifying us for the World Cup, almost winning the CHAN and doing well in the friendly matches we have played even the one against Italy in London. So, I believe Keshi can take us there. I don’t only believe in Keshi, I believe in Nigeria and Nigerians and I believe in the fact that we have the capacity to excel in anything we do not only in football given the right support, the right tools and the necessary funds.
Prompt News: Would you be in Brazil to support the Eagles or you would watch from the comfort of your home?
Ambassador: You know I have limitations with the nature of my job. As much as I love football, I will say I have been privileged to attend two world cups; France ’98 and South Africa 2010.This time around being the Ambassador it is pretty difficult to attend because I attended those ones when I was not the Ambassador. It is difficult leaving my desk to attend the World Cup but you can never tell, if I get the opportunity I will surely be in Brazil even if it is for two weeks. I am not soliciting now but if the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) think it right because I have been a winning Ambassador for them I think they should be able to take me to the World Cup (Laughs).
Prompt News: Our U-17 girls qualified and are playing in the World Cup right now, U-20 girls have qualified for World Cup in Canada later in the year, and Falcons will take on Rwanda for African Women Championship (AWC) qualification in May. What is the future of female football in Nigeria?
Ambassador: The future of female football in Nigeria has to be retrospective. We are still the top female footballing nation in Africa no matter what anyone says. Honestly, it will take a while for any African country to catch up with us and surpass our record and I don’t see that happening because we are not relaxing. And if we continue to do things right our female football teams will not only get to the level of the male teams but equally do better. I watch everything that is Nigeria, male or female, senior or junior. My perspective about the female team is this; if you talk about the Falcons our players can do better if they have the right /necessary exposure. We have few players playing in other leagues in different parts of the world, which if you agree with me if you parallel it with the male team, that has been what has been going for them and for us because of the experience and exposure that our male footballers are exposed to in other league of the world. Our female teams do not have players with that kind of exposure and experience .I am not taking anything away from our local league where most of them are based but I think it will serve the future of our female teams better if we have a lot of our female footballers playing in other leagues in the world. America is a perfect example where their female league and team have more popularity than the male team.
Prompt News: Don’t you think the female players in the league need more motivation than they are getting now?
Ambassador: It is high time we understood that football is business and government has no business in football. (just as government is divesting from business it can’t be investing in football.)Government cannot invest in club sides; it is left for our female professional league body to structure the league in such a manner where there will be business participation in our female football league. I am talking about the female domestic league support from the private sector. How is the league being marketed and what is the appeal not only to the public but also the sponsors? It is going to be a win, win situation for both the league, the teams and the sponsors since they will be able to promote and market their brand to the league and to some of the football teams themselves, but it is how well organised and structured the league is and how professional we are for them to have an appeal to the sponsors. Only when this is done can our female league players have same kind of motivation like their male counterpart.
Prompt News: What is your take on League Management Company (LMC)?
Ambassador: Let me say one thing, there is nothing wrong with innovations and I must commend NFF for all their efforts but that is a completely new paradigm for me when it comes to football management worldwide. I feel they have to follow the template for the best of the best leagues in the world. They need to know how these leagues are succeeding; they don’t need to reinvent anything. I am not against innovation and I am not taking away any credit from NFF for such innovation but for me the question is this; this is an uncharted territory if you ask me I will tell them to look at the most successful leagues in Europe, South America, North America and even here in South Africa, to try and test their templates.NFF has tried it is good for us to be innovative too but we can tweak the templates of other leagues to serve our own purpose for our league.
Prompt News: What do you say is the problem with our league, government management or interference?
Ambassador: What is the rule by FIFA, how many countries in the world have government involved in football? Successful footballing nations in the world their government has no role to play in their football ,whether from the point of view of organisation ,management or funding.
Prompt News: That is what LMC are trying to do by making sure Government gradually but surely hands off running football.
Ambassador: Why asking government to hands off if you can’t fend for yourself? It is like a child who can’t fend for himself and asking the parents to leave him alone. Hands off, after how many years? So it is funny to say hands off.Will a child who can stand on its feet, fend for itself get interference from his parents? Will the parents decide to manage an adult?
Prompt News: What team do you support in Nigeria?
Ambassador: Those days, I used to support Stores
Prompt News: Being from Niger state why don’t you support Niger Tornadoes?
Ambassador: Yes there is Niger Tornadoes, but not because I am from Niger State therefore I must support Niger Tornadoes. I am talking about those days when the league was so good. Right now I don’t support one team, I follow all the clubs and make sure I watch the league matches on TV. But because I am not on ground in Nigeria, the opportunity for me to see the teams by going to the stadium is not there. If I am in Nigeria and I have the opportunity I will go the stadium because I like watching football
Why can’t we create the culture to support our teams? Weekends in Nigeria when the Nigeria premier league is on everybody is wearing the jersey of Chelsea, Arsenal, nobody is wearing that of Enyimba, Shooting Stars, Kano Pillars e.t.c.I know some people who leave Nigeria on weekends to go and watch the English premier league matches and come back. The followership of Arsenal FC and Manchester United is highest in Nigeria than anywhere else except England. I am even talking about those who have membership. So how many Nigerians have membership of our clubs in Nigeria? If you ask most Nigerians who watch the EPL about matches last weekend in the Nigeria league, they won’t be able to give you answers.
This is what we really have to understand, we are in the 21st century the world is now a global village. If we don’t support our own who is going to support the league for us? Here in South Africa, they do better than us. If you see the way they support their local teams here, you will marvel. On weekends they go to the stadiums. In our own case even when you have the big teams playing the stadium is scanty, two third of the stadium is empty. Some people say the fault is television but I disagree. In England, France and here South Africa is there no television? But the stadiums are packed.
Prompt News: Commonwealth games are in few months time, Olympics is around the corner, any hope for team Nigeria considering what happened at the last Olympics?
Ambassador: I don’t know about hope. You can’t reap where you never sowed. That is problem with sports generally and our Olympic movement .Everybody is shouting about medals, medals from what? Do we have youth structures to support each of our sports discipline? All the sports Federations must behave like business. Sports Federations in other countries are business minded and they have sponsors. What has happened to school sports? I hear it is been revived. When they do that on what platform is it going to rest when you pick up the athletes? What are the infrastructures you have in place for training? Every time our athletes are going for competition what we hear is that they are going somewhere to camp, why can’t they camp in Nigeria if we have the infrastructures there? We are talking of sports development is it not? Without structures we are wasting our time. It is like someone trying to apply a dinosaur method in a cyber age.
Prompt News: People have said the other sports don’t do well because attention is not given to them like football, do you agree?
Ambassador: No I don’t. All the Federations must have business mentality, their psychopath must change. Have we not been talking about the challenges of football? It is the same. How many athletics clubs do we have? When you look at the United States, their athletes are either from the various athletic clubs or from colleges. In football I learnt that football academy business is in vogue now, everybody wants to own a football academy. A lot of these things are wrong because some of the people who open the academy did not do that for altruistic reasons but because they want to make money by selling players. I am not saying it is not a legitimate aspiration but selling players is what is driving them not because some are interested in the developing the sport and the game. What is the point if we have football academies and good players from the academies who cannot feed our leagues and we go and feed some leagues elsewhere? If things are done well we can have quality leagues and go back to the days of the 70’s and 80’s when we were young and we used to go and watch IICC, Rangers, Flamimg Flamingoes, ECN,Plateau Highlanders, Staionary Stores. Those days in Lagos where derby match between Stationary Stores and ECN (before it became NEPA) was a sell out.
Prompt News: What sport do you do?
Ambassador: I used to play golf but because of the nature of my job I hardly have time to do any sport. So, I exercise a lot which I do to keep fit.
Prompt News: How do you unwind?
Ambassador: I listen to my jazz and classical music and I also watch football. This is in addition to reading. I love jazz music, I am not a passive lover of jazz music I am also a collector of jazz music. I live and breathe jazz music
Prompt News: Being a diplomat with very busy schedule where does your family come in ?
Ambassador : I am one of those few Nigerians who makes it a habit in spite of my tight schedule and work to make sure that I find space and time to spend vacation with my family at least once a year. And when I say vacation I mean vacation, not going on shopping. You know a lot of Nigerians say they are going on vacation but they are busy going in and out of shops that are not vacation. For me vacation is de-stressing and re-energizing, complete relaxation with my family, my kids, we do things together, we go out to eat together, play together, go to the beach together, do whatever the kids want to do with them together. That is vacation, not going on shopping.
Prompt News: if you were not a diplomat what would you have been?
Ambassador: The options are many. Firstly I probably would have been an aviator which I miss being by a stroke. Secondly, I would have been in the legal profession and lastly an extra ordinary one which is hanging somewhere, an accomplished jazz musician
Prompt News: What puts you off people?
Ambassador: Dishonesty and the reverse- honesty and humility endear me to people
Prompt News: Thank you Sir for speaking with me
Ambassador: Thank you very much, it is a pleasure.
