Akwa United is Sitting on Top of the League Table but Club Chairman, Paul Bassey says:We are not Taking Chances

What are your responsibilities as the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor, Akwa Ibom State, Mr Udom Emmanuel and concurrently, Chairman of Akwa United and how do you combine this double barrelled role?

Well, so far, so good. The brief is a bit wide but I also work in collaboration with the Commissioner for Sports. We inherited the club that is about 24 years in existence. We have worked hard, to put in some efforts, in order to make it compete favourably and ensure that Akwa United is a strong factor to be reckoned with in Nigerian Football circles. In the last five years, with the support of His Excellency, Governor Udom Emmanuel, Akwa United has won the Federation Cup twice and in the League, our worst position has been fourth. Twice, we have come near winning the League trophy. Then, one way or the other, the thing was aborted. Right now, as I am talking to you, we are sitting on top of the league. We have seven matches to go. We believe we will win the league this year.

What are your expectations as you confront the People’s Elephant” Enyimba FC?

Well, I think it is a divine fixture. I am saying so because, when you are on top of the league table and on the verge topping the league and you are on the verge of winning the league and then suddenly the people you are playing against are those that are also likely to give you some problems and challenge and then you have to face them, of course you must be capable to face the champion. …So when you face those who are likely to challenge you and you beat them, that strengthens your position and it puts you on a pedestal of authority. Aba used to be a slaughter house for visiting teams but it has not been so this year. Enyimba has not been very fantastic this year; they have drawn five matches at home. They have drawn against Heartland, Nasarawa, Warri Wolves, Rivers United and Akwa United all in Aba so we believe that we can beat them and that is exactly what we intend to do. Beating them would strengthen our position on the league table.

What does it feel like being on top of the league table so far with 31 Matches played; 15 Wins; 57 Points and 20 goal difference with only seven matches to go?

We feel great. It is a great feeling to be on top of the league table. However, we take every match as it comes. If you notice, we used to have like seven, eight or nine points lead on the table. But it is not like that for now as Akwa United is topping the league with only two points. So it’s a bit delicate. What it means is that if the team placing second wins her next match and you lose, the team will overtake you and top the table by one point or so. So we are not taking any chances. We are determined to finish tops on the league table. We owe it to our Governor, Udom Emmanuel and our teeming supporters.

The cost of honouring all your match fixtures must be very expensive given the prevailing insecurity in the country has made travel by road a very hazardous business while air travel has shot through the roof. How do you cope?

Traveling by road in Nigeria now is a huge challenge. Everybody knows the security situation in the country today. Beyond the security challenges, the stress of travelling by road is there too. For instance, we were in Jos on Sunday. From there, we had to move to Abuja on Monday in order to be able to play on Wednesday. Afterwards, we left Thursday to enable us to play on Sunday. Sincerely speaking, it has been very hectic. But that sounds a bit simple when you compare it to our trip to Gombe, Bauchi and Katsina. Well, before you ask, why are we not going by Air, I will tell you that going by air is not easy. Flying a team to honour away matches has a lot of financial implications. It involves a lot of financial expenses to airlift 30 people. Even when you fly, apart from Lagos and Abuja, you still have to hit the road again to get to your match venue. So it has not been easy crisscrossing the length and breadth of the county to keep up with match obligations.

Looking at the League generally, how would you assess and rate the League in the past few years?

It has been wonderful by the standard that we have now. However, you don’t have to forget that most of the challenge is that you cannot take the league out of the country that you are operating in. Sometimes, it is a miracle that we do what we want to do. It is rather unfortunate that there is not much attention to our local league. The Nigerian league needs more attention, more planning and adequate sponsorship. We have operated the league for four years now without a sponsor and that is not good for the game. I would rather say that it is unpardonable. Sponsorship helps the game to grow. For instance, when you have a Sponsor, it helps you to cushion the wear and tear associated with running the League. Sponsorship is just like giving a financial lifeline to the clubs. If you notice, most of Nigerian clubs have only the name of their clubs embossed on their jerseys.  Even Shirt sponsorship that is the cheapest form of sponsorship anywhere in the world, is absent in our league. For now it is a miracle that clubs in the Nigerian league are still surviving without corporate sponsorships.

How is Akwa United funded, do you have sponsors?

For now, we do not have sponsors other than the Akwa Ibom State Government. Two seasons ago, we had Dana Air as our principal sponsors. What that did for us was that the Airline was able to get us as many as 420 tickets and it helped us a lot as the airline could take us to Abuja and Lagos and from there, we could travel by road to our match venues. However, when Ibom Air came into existence, we had a moral issue as you cannot have a state-owned airline and then have another airline sponsoring you. So we had to regrettably drop the Dana sponsorship and start negotiations with Ibom Air. However, Ibom Air came with smaller aircrafts, aircrafts that have 90 seat capacity. So we are negotiating with them.  It has been so difficult to get people to be able to sponsor a football league in the country. For instance, we left Oyo on Thursday for Jos to play the league on Sunday. We have been on the road for one week now. When you put together the transport, the feeding, the accommodation and the bonuses and other logistics, even little things like water, you will be shocked to know how much water we consume in a day either for matches or for training as well as medicals and so on. It is quite a lot of money and what can you get in return now, nothing apart from that honour at the end of the day when you would have won the League and made the state proud. I want to talk about those journalists who believe that the government has no hands in football or in sports generally. Let me tell you authoritatively, without government at this stage you can hardly survive in sports. Even seeing any individual that will bring out N2.5 million every week for a state to go and play a match that he does not get anything in return. I know sometimes sponsorship benefits are not measured in naira and kobo but you need to get something. Even at the gate where you charge N200 and spectators will tell you about the economic frustration; that this stadium is built on the land that belongs to their fathers. “Why should you tell me to come and pay and enter?” The person will tell you that he was a referee 20 years ago, or a coach and it goes on and on. So you don’t make money at the gate.

Do you have a Madam Akwa United? If yes, who is she? Who is the greatest motivator of Akwa United?

For now we don’t have one. Although, over time, we have had a lot of people including traditional figures who come around to lend their support to us. Some of them have either retired as referees, coaches or as athletes themselves. In Rangers for instance, you have an Association of Rangers Ex players with the likes Christian Chukwu and Emmanuel Okala and the rest. In Akwa United, what we have are father figures because what the present Commissioner for Sports has done is to set up a Sports Stakeholders Association in the state where we have knowledgeable people who come out once in a while to help discuss sports in the state.

Officiating can be problematic in any league anywhere in the world. Give us your assessment of officiating so far in the current campaign.

Officiating has really improved a lot in the Nigerian league.  I think the improvement is because of the technology that is available and in use today. The phones we now hold instead of laptops to put stories together, the high lens cameras to take pictures but with the phone now you can capture so much. What people are doing in recent times is that they record matches and before 90 minutes the video of the match is out in the cyber space.  This makes the referee to be cautious knowing that if he does not do well, people will see that, that goal is disallowed and that penalty he gave is out of place. The improvement in the league may not be going to be 100 per cent. But there is a great improvement in officiating in the Nigerian league. We must also draw a line between competence and may be, cheating or whatever. A referee is not God, he is also a human being he could make mistakes. In the process of making a mistake you believe that you have been favoured, you believe that the opposing team has sent him to come and kill you and you descend on him. Some of us have been accused of harbouring thugs in the stadium to fight referees and attack them at half-time so as to get results that you need.  But I also belong to Club Owners Association. We are doing everything possible to work against those things. The statutes, the rules and regulations governing the league for instance people believe that they are not very accurate or effective. But I believe that if introduce things like three points deduction or six points deduction, that could also help in further improving the league. It is not correct to blame clubs for security breaches. Security at match venues is not the responsibility of clubs. Most times clubs are not even responsible for security situation. So, it’s a work in progress.

In the course of this campaign, there would have been good days and bad days. Give us an insight into your best and worst days so far.

Well, I think I have more of the good days than the bad days. We went 18 matches unbeaten, so I had forgotten what defeat tastes like especially when you go for away matches and come back with the joy and dancing and everything was going on fine. Then, suddenly we lost in Katsina. It was a strange feeling as I had not lost in a very long while. I was a bit taken aback. That defeat in Katsina was a very low point for me. The high point for me is always when we get back to the dressing room and then we give God all the glory. The God factor in Akwa United is very strong. We know our limitations as human beings. We know what we can do and we know where God takes over. So, at the end of every match, we go back into that dressing room: we sing, we dance and we thank God for everything. Every match day the officials fast, 6am to 12pm or 6am to 4pm. We get men of God to come and share with us and give exultation, although we have the club pastor. At other times we get staff to give short exultation, talk to us so everyone has also been a key feature for this club. Since we came, we have been inspired by the Governor too.

How can we bring back the crowd to stadiums in Nigeria?

The low turnout of spectators and fans at match venues is a function of the economy. The economy is in really bad shape and people are struggling to survive. No apologies about the bad economy.  People can barely survive. People are too engrossed in surviving for the day. Going to watch matches is now a luxury. Before, people could leave Enugu and go to Lagos to watch a match.  You cannot do that now. People have to survive first.