***As Nigerian clubs’ wait for top prize continues
By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Like the two previous Nigeria’s representatives in the newly introduced women’s football club competition by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Women’s Champions League (WCL), Edo Queens Football Club of Benin City has failed yet again to lift the coveted trophy at the 4th edition of the competition in Morocco.
Edo Queens missed the chance to make a podium finish after the Moses Aduku-tutored team suffered a 4-3 defeat by Egypt’s Football Club Masar via penalty shootout in the 3rd place match on Friday night at Stade El Abdi Ben Ahmed El Jadida, Morocco.
The highly contested match that was watched by scanty crowd ended goalless at regulation time despite the Nigeria Women’s Football League (NWFL) reigning champions well ahead of the Egyptian women’s league champions in ball possession, pass accuracy, passes and a total of 24 shots fired but only 3 on target unlike Masar with a total of 5 goals on target out of 7 overall in the regulation time.
Sadly, Edo Queens missed two of their penalty kicks with captain Chioma Olise and midfielder Kafayat Mafishere missing from the spot even as FC Masar missed one of their kicks before coming from the dead to win.
With the result, Edo Queens could only finish in the 4th place thus Bayelsa Queens’s Bronze medal-winning performance in the CAFWCL 2022 edition remains the highest level a Nigerian club has reached in the elite women’s club competition.
The CAFWCL trophy has continued to elude Nigerian clubs as Rivers Angels, Nigeria’s first representatives in the first-ever CAFWCL held in Cairo, Egypt in 2021 crashed out in the group stage after losing their two out of three group matches.
The Port Harcourt-based club was thrashed 3-0 in their opening game, lost 1-0 in the second match to eventual winners Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa and bounced back to win the last match 4-0 against Vihiga Queens FC of Kenya but three points were not enough to qualify for the semi-final stage.
Expectations that Nigeria’s second representatives in 2022, Bayelsa Queens of Yenagoa will do better in the second edition of the tournament held in Morocco soon evaporated like the early morning dews after Bayelsa Queens were defeated 1-0 by FAR Rabat in the semi-final clash.
Not to leave the competition empty-handed, Bayelsa Queens under late coach Domo Okara exhibited great tenacity of purpose at Stade Prince Moulay EL Hassan to beat Simba Queens of Tanzania 1-0 courtesy of striker Juliet Chinonso Sunday’s 70th minute goal which was enough to grab the bronze medal in their first appearance in the competition.
However, Nigerian club did not feature in the tournament as then NWFL champions Delta Queens FC of Asaba did not even qualify for CAFWCL third edition because the club was beaten in the final of West African Football Union (WAFU-B) championship hosted by Nigeria in Benin City, Edo state.
Perhaps, the none appearance of a Nigerian club in the last edition in Cote D’Ivoire and the success of Bayelsa Queens in the 2024 CAF WAFU-B championship which they won early in the year gave many Nigerian football followers hope that Edo Queens will win the trophy this time around in Morocco.
But this was not to be as fellow debutantes FC Masar of Egypt defeated Edo Queens 4-3 via penalty shootout in the third place match at Stade El Abdi Ben Ahmed El Jadida on Friday night as the wait for a Nigerian club to lift the trophy or reach the finals has been extended by one more year.
WHY NIGERIA CLUBS FALTER AT LAST MINUTE
The inability of Nigerian clubs to lift the four-year old CAF Women’s Champions League (CAFWCL) trophy has become worrisome to women’s football followers in the country and across Africa especially as South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns have won it two times and FAR Rabat winning it once and are on the verge of lifting it for second time today in Casablanca if they beat Tout Puissant Mazembe in the final of the 2024 edition.
The failure of the star-studded Rivers Angels in the first edition in 2021 still remains a surprise to many football fans because the club had everything going for it from quality players to heavy financial support by the Rivers state government yet the “Pride of Rivers” crashed out in the group stage.
In fact, Rivers Angels’ exit at the group stage of the maiden edition of the competition, third-place finish of Bayelsa Queens in 2022 coupled with the inability of a Nigerian club to qualify for the 2023 edition and two defeats of Edo Queens by TP Mazembe in the semi-final and FC Masar in the third-place match in Morocco, have left a damaging effect on Nigeria football as the country remains the
most successful women’s football playing nation in Africa if the number of times the senior women’s football team, Super Falcons have won the CAF Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON) are anything to rely upon.
With an unprecedented 11 WAFCON titles and being undisputed Champions of Africa, including in 1991 and 1995 when CAF has not introduced Women’s Championship, Nigeria is truly a force to be reckoned with in women’s football in the continent.
Nigeria was the first country to represent Africa in the maiden Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) U-19 Women’s World Cup final in 2002 in Canada before it became U-20 and also have represented Africa at every FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup final since its introduction in 2008 except in 2018 in Uruguay.
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Also, it’s on record that Nigeria is the first country in Africa to introduce women’s national football league as the defunct Princess Bola Jegede Babes FC of Lagos, Simbiat Abiola Babes of Abeokuta, Rivers Angels under the management of late Prince Larry Ezeh, Pelican Stars of Calabar and Elder Bola Kuejunbola’s Ufuoma Babes FC of Warri were recruiting foreign players from across Africa.
For example, in the 1998 African Women Championship (AWC) held in Nigeria many players in the Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon team played their club football in Nigerian clubs like Rivers Angels and Princess Bola Jegede Babes.
At a point, players from Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana and Liberia were flooding Nigeria to play for the country’s clubs because of the competitiveness of the Nigeria women’s football league in the 1990s to early 2000s.
To show how well managed and profitable the Nigeria women’s football league was in the period mentioned, all the Super Falcons players from 1991 to 2002 played their club football in Nigerian clubs with Princess Bola Jegede Babes, Ufuoma Babes, Rivers Angels and later Pelican Stars of Calabar supplying the highest number of national team players.
HOW THE COOKIE CRUMBLES
Against this backdrop and for the fact that Nigeria started playing organised women’s football league earlier than most of the African countries, it means that Nigerian teams, clubs or national, should be making podium finish in any women’s football competition in Africa.
But not anymore as many countries in Africa have caught up with Nigeria and many have overtaken her while some that could not form women’s football leagues when the Nigerian league was attractive to many players from other African nations have overtaken Nigeria.
For example, while women’s football league started in Nigeria in 1978, Morocco whose AS FAR Rabat Ladies thrashed Rivers Angels 3-0 in Group B opening match in Egypt in the Champions League first edition started her Moroccan women’s league in 2001, a clear 25 years later than Nigeria.
Also, South Africa from where two-time champions Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies come from, started women’s football league in 2009, a difference of three decades after Nigeria’s representatives have been playing in the Nigerian league.
In fact, only Ghana started women’s football league alongside Nigeria in the late 1980s even as it is on record that by 1989, Princess Bola Jegede Babes FC of Lagos was playing an annual international club friendly matches with Ghana Postal Ladies FC at the famous Accra Sports Stadium in Accra.
It is therefore very painful to know that a top Nigeria’s women’s football clubs especially the reigning champions of the country and WAFU-B champions Edo Queens were defeated in the third-place match by FC Masar, established in 2019 under the name Tutankhamun FC, before rebranding to its current name FC Masar in 2024.
The continued crashing out of Nigeria’s representatives in the competition at early stage like Rivers Angels in 2021 and inability of Edo Queens to win the bronze medal this time around points to the fact that the NWFL is not competitive anymore.
It also means that the efforts of the pioneers of women’s football proprietorship, promoters, sponsors and some sports journalists who laboured to midwife the recognition of the game by then Nigeria Football Association (NFA) now NFF in 1990 have been in vain.
REASONS FOR NIGERIA’S CLUBS INCESSANT FAILURES
Sadly, many factors are responsible for the elimination of Nigeria’s champions in the elite women’s club competition. They include but not limited to the state of the Nigerian women’s league, club management styles, poor funding, technical deficiencies of the coaching staff and other sundry issues.
The participation of Nigerian clubs in CAF organised competitions men or women have always been a huge challenge for those managing the clubs as they will be running from pillar to post until their teams play their first game with a club like Rivers Angels of Port Harcourt arriving in Cairo, Egypt on the day of their first match which they expectedly lost 3-0 to FAR Rabat.
Of course, former head coach Edwin Okon blamed the team’s early exit from the tournament on the catastrophic traveling arrangements made by the club’s management, pointing out that his players suffered from rigorous traveling schedule before the game.
Rivers Angels Head Coach Edwin Okon was to attribute the 3-0 humiliation of his team to the late arrival of the club to the match, pointing out that his players suffered from rigorous traveling schedule before the game.
According to the former Falconets coach his team was very tired from all the traveling issues which led the players to be fatigued before their first game which the lost woefully.
“The team is tired from all the traveling issues and that’s the normal result. My job is to pick up their spirit, let them know that the game is over and recover for the next matches”, Coach Okon said in a post match interview.
Without fear of contradictions, Rivers Angels were not alone in this show of shame, although some lapses by other clubs are not always reported by the media.
Prompt News investigations however
revealed that the twin problems of technical deficiencies of the coaching staff and poor funding or deliberate misapplication of funds conspire to undo Nigerian clubs on continental assignments.
It has to be said that some top management staff of these clubs, out of greed often subjected the entire team to hectic travel schedules instead of making seamless travel arrangements for the players and officials to enjoy some measure of comfort on transit.
It’s on record that none of Nigerian clubs men or women have a functional Protocol or Travels Department with Protocol Officers knowledgeable in travels and tour who can make their travel arrangements including the procurement of entry visas for the contingent, ticketing, hotel reservations and land transportation on arrival.
Worse, the clubs on several occasions bypass the NFF which could have assisted them by attaching officers from the Protocol Department to make their own traveling arrangements which many times backfire as the teams often spend several hours at airports across Africa before getting to their destinations.
Perhaps, the technical/tactical deficiencies of Nigeria clubs coaching staff like we saw in Edo Queens team to the 4th edition of CAFWCL in Morocco, have been the greatest undoing of the Nigerian teams campaigning on the continent.
The inability of the coaching crew led by Aduku to have a depth knowledge of their opponents, in terms of the strength and weaknesses of players, coaching staff, and also team tactics and formations prior to their meeting have always posed a stumbling blocks.
It’s on record that most of Nigeria clubs men and women do not have full compliments of technical staff in their teams as most of them can not afford hiring as part of technical crew qualified fitness trainer, psychologist, tactical coach, set-piece coach, goalkeeping coach and team tactical analyst or match reader, among others.
The management of Nigerian clubs prefer to include WAGs or cronies in the delegation instead of boosting the coaching crew with relevant technical and experienced support staff heading into a big competition like the CAFWCL.
Many of the country’s coaches at the clubs and national teams’ levels do not possess requisite coaching badges or certificates which always leave their clubs vulnerable to defeat if they meet a very good side because skills and mother luck cannot always win games but tactical prowess does it.
Recently, African football governing body CAF has made a law that “no CAF A, B or UEFA Pro License no bench role” in all CAF Competitions including the CAFWCL in Morocco, a situation which may have resulted in Edo Queens’ Aduku coaching his team from the stands.
There is no denying the fact that Aduku’s absence from the bench role gravely affected Edo Queens players in the five matches especially in the semi-final clash with TP Mazembe, a game they could have won in the regulation time if the head coach was on the bench to marshall out instructions to his wards.
The results of these lacuna and planlessness by the club management gave birth to the two defeats Edo Queens suffered within a space of three days in Morocco.
The management of club could have hired on short term, an interim manager who has the required certificates to lead the team to Morocco.
