With return tickets for players and officials to venues of 15 away matches costing over N2 billion in a season, the prohibitive cost of air travel has forced football clubs in the country to stick to gruelling and hazardous road trips, which compromises not only players’ health but also their performance on the pitch, and attendant quality of the game. Unfortunately, huge government financing has watered down agitation for an abridged cum regional league format, just as team managers are also making a fortune keeping their players on the road for days – at the expense of football development, CHRISTIAN OKPARA reports.

When the Sunshine Stars Football Club of Akure set sail to honour a Nigerian Premier Football League (NPFL) encounter with the Bendel Insurance Football Club in Benin City, Edo State, there was no premonition that they would return without a key crewmember. But that happened after an armed robbery incident along the Benin-Ore Road cost the team its assistant kit manager, Taiwo Dosunmu.

That ugly event in the early part of the ongoing season compelled the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) to appeal to clubs to consider making long trips to away games by air, to avoid the sort of incident that cost Sunshine Stars one of their staff members.

Shortly after the tragic incident involving Sunshine Stars, a Doma United of Gombe bus conveying players and officials was also involved in an accident along the Makurdi-Lafia Road.

The team was returning to Gombe after an NPFL clash against Heartland Football Club, at the Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri.

Although no life was lost, the accident left many players with injuries, prompting the NPFL to postpone their Week 36 games.
Apart from accidents and armed robbers, kidnappers have also made the roads very dangerous as they constantly lay ambush on groups and individuals, including football clubs, especially on the Kogi route, where clubs travelling from the North to the South and vice versa must traverse to get to their destinations.

Last season, the immediate past head coach of Rivers United, Stanley Eguma, spent some days in a kidnapper’s den following an ambush that saw the criminals abduct two members of the team, on their way home from an away game in Adamawa State.
The two men travelling with Eguma had alerted the team of the ambush, which at the time they said was carried out by unidentified gunmen.

The vehicle they were travelling in was forced to the side of the road and the pair was then forced out of the car, while the kidnappers drove off with Eguma still in the vehicle.
He was later released by his abductors after the club side, Rivers United, allegedly paid a huge sum of money as ransom.

Over the years, teams in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) have been attacked by armed robbers and gunmen, who often take advantage of the poor security situation on the highways to unleash terror on players.

With the country’s largely challenged road network occasioned by dire infrastructure deficit, travelling from the East to the West gulps over eight hours in some instances, while journeys from the North to the East sometimes last for more than 24 hours.

In all of these, the longest a team can fly from one end of the country to the other is two hours. Sadly, most teams can ill afford the luxury of air travel because of the paucity of finances.

Flying to away matches: Not a luxury
In climes where football is treated as a business, and where the well-being of players is prioritised, lengthy road trips are highly discouraged as a result of their unpleasant consequences on players’ health and quality of performance.

Put differently, travelling for away matches is the least of worries for football clubs in such climes since there are diverse means of moving from one venue to the other without compromising the safety of their players and officials.

In Germany, for instance, most of the clubs travel by luxury (sleeper) coaches, and fast trains, and also fly to their away games depending on the distance that they have to cover en route such venues.

European and South American footballers, who see flying to games as a necessity rather than a luxury, are assured that the management of their clubs will take care of such logistics because it is the normal thing to do.

Topflight European football teams typically travel to and from matches in their countries using a variety of transportation methods. These can include chartered flights, trains, buses, and sometimes even private airplanes. The choice of transportation often depends on the distance to be covered, the team’s budget, and the logistics of the specific match.

For longer distances, such as between cities or countries, teams often use chartered flights for efficiency and to minimise travel time. For shorter distances, they may opt for buses or trains. Additionally, teams may also have specific travel arrangements based on their sponsorship deals or league regulations.

Scientists agree that any journey that is more than four hours by road is better done by air because of the regenerative component at play.

Numerous studies have confirmed that long-distance road trips could have several physical and psychological effects on footballers and their performance.

Prolonged sitting during road trips, for instance, can lead to muscle stiffness and fatigue, affecting a player’s physical readiness and performance, while cognitive demands of travel, such as navigating new environments and maintaining concentration over long periods, can contribute to mental fatigue, reducing players’ sharpness and decision-making abilities on the field.

Additionally, maintaining proper nutrition and hydration can be challenging during long trips, affecting energy levels and physical performance, just as long travel times can interfere with players’ sleep patterns, leading to sleep deprivation or poor-quality sleep, which can negatively impact performance.

Julia Eyre, a sports scientist and psychologist told DW, a German publication, that “a couple of things we see very often after long trips are ‘tight hips, tight back’ feeling and an increased perception of pain around those areas.

“Considering the lower back and down is a footballer’s bread and butter, it’s so much nicer when time spent in that position is limited.

“You can definitely mitigate it (on bus or train) by walking around, but anything longer than two hours is going to be uncomfortable.”

Eyre, who, in addition to being the athletic director at the TSG Wiesek Youth Academy in Central Germany, also runs her business – White Lion Performance, added: “Footballers tend to have really tight hamstrings, hips, and hips flexors, So, if you’re getting on the pitch straight afterwards, teams tend to fly because they’re only travelling for a couple of hours.”

Considerations such as the impact of long journeys on players’ fitness are not lost on Nigerian clubs, but they are constrained to make such travels by road because of the high cost of air travel among other factors.

Prohibitive cost of air travel, paucity of funds as disincentives to league devt

For an away match, most clubs averagely travel with 18 players, a technical crew of four persons, a doctor, and two nurses that form the medical team on away matches, as well as up to six other backroom staff.

In a country where the average cost of a one-hour flight is N140,300, it will cost a club side N8,698,600 to ferry a 31-man team to and fro an away match venue by air. This amounts to N130,479,000 to prosecute 15 away matches.
The 20 teams in the country’s topflight would, therefore, spend at least N2, 609, 5800, 000 per season.

Each club plays 18 away games and when three games played by these clubs in nearby centres outside their home grounds are taken out, each club is saddled with the task of executing 15 away games.

When the cost of accommodation, feeding, and other sundry expenses that crop up before and after away games are added to this, it becomes a burden too high for the average club, whose yearly budget, in some cases, is not more than N2 billion.

As club managers grapple with poor finances to run their clubs, some stakeholders have suggested that rather than subject clubs to the tortuous, dangerous travels, it would be better to adopt an abridged league system, where teams are divided into two conferences, with the best three or four teams from each group coming together for a playoff in one centre to decide the champion for the season.

This system, made popular by the United States’ National Basketball Association (NBA) championship, has been in use in the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF) over the years.

However, some other stakeholders are against such a system for various reasons.
While administrators that are opposed to the idea, argue that an abridged league would not produce a true champion of the league, those that are in favour of it insist that the antagonists are doing so for reasons that are not altruistic, but pecuniary.

They further allege that such managers still prefer the risky, lengthy, and gruelling road trips to air trips because of what they stand to gain, by administering funds for such road trips especially when they play outside their geo-political zones or regions.
For privileged few, flying to away matches constitutes a soothing experience, palliative

In the last few seasons, only a few Nigerian clubs mustered enough financial muscle to prosecute their away games by air.

Akwa United Football Club of Uyo and Heartland Football Club of Owerri had sponsorship agreements with Dana Airlines, which entailed the carrier ferrying the team to their away games. The sponsorship deals, however, were discontinued for different reasons.

Dana’s agreement with Heartland could not be continued because of the Owerri team’s several problems, including its relegation to the lower division of the Nigerian league.
The deal with Akwa United, on the other hand, was halted when Ibom Air, owned by the Akwa Ibom State Government (which also sponsors Akwa United FC) became operational.

Presently, only Akwa United and Remo Stars Football Club of Ikenne fly frequently to their away games partly because their proprietors own airlines.

According to the Chairman of Akwa United FC, Etubom Paul Bassey, agreements with airlines are like palliatives because of the country’s peculiar aviation system.

“These agreements only help in taking the clubs halfway to their away games because not many cities have airports, where the clubs can fly to. For instance, if you have a game in any of Makurdi, Gombe, Sokoto, or Katsina, you first fly to Abuja and then complete your journey to these venues by road. That means that you must station a bus with three officials in Abuja for the remaining leg of the journey. In our case, it costs about N200,000 to fuel the bus for the trip and back to Uyo. That is the bus taking the team to the match venue, returning them to Abuja, (to fly back to Uyo), and getting back to Uyo.

“If you are going to Ikenne, Akure, or Ibadan, you first get to Lagos and then complete the rest of the journey by road. That is why I said that traveling by air is like a palliative…. it is 50-50.”

He also said that sometimes it’s difficult for the airlines to meet the club’s demands because they also have their businesses to run.

“A team travels with at least 23 people, including 18 players and some officials. Some aircraft carry about 80 passengers and when you take away 23 seats, it affects their operations. The economy is so difficult now that the airlines think first of staying afloat before any corporate social responsibility.”

Remo Stars of Ikenne is the only club in Nigeria currently flying to all distant away games. The proprietor of the club, Kunle Soname, also has an airline – Valuejet Airlines.

The Media Director of Remo Stars, Oladimeji Oshode, told The Guardian: “We have flown to all our away games in the North, except the game in Lafia because the airports were shut during the NLC strike.

“We also flew to play the games against Rivers United in Port Harcourt, and Bayelsa United in Yenagoa because it gives the players enough time to rest and prepare for the matches.”
Making leagues attractive to investors, partnerships, and sponsorship

Stakeholders in the country’s football are unanimous in their submission that adopting international best practices and studying the way things work in well-run leagues across the world, would ease the pains borne by Nigerian league players.

The Chairman of Abia Warriors Football Club of Aba, John Obuh, told The Guardian that to travel for an away game, his club needs between N3.5 million to N4.5 million depending on the distance, number of players in the contingent, and logistics involved.

Obuh said that it has been difficult to travel by air to away games because of paucity of funds, inconsistencies in flight schedules, no direct flight to some venues, and intermittent fuel scarcity.

The former national U-17 team (Golden Eaglets) coach said that clubs are forced to travel by road by “such factors as non-availability of funds, lack of strong and adequate partnerships with airline operators, and sudden postponement of matches by league organisers.”

Obuh, who called for a tripartite partnership involving the league organisers, club owners, and airline operators to forge partnerships that would help teams to fly to match venues added: “Nigerian players suffer a lot of psychological damage when they travel by road for league games, especially when the journey is long. When I was a coach in the domestic league, each time I travelled with my team, I felt pity for myself and the players. You should understand that the way things are in the country is worse now than before, especially considering bad roads, reckless drivers, and the high level of insecurity in the country.

“These players have to face the long journey and at the same time honour league games the next day, which affects their performance. These domestic players are gripped by anxiety each time they travel for away games. Consequently, they are always looking for an opportunity to leave the country and play abroad where things are well organised.”

Obuh, who also coached the national U-20 team, the Flying Eagles, said that solutions to most of these problems lie with the clubs’ owners, who are saddled with the responsibility of looking after their players’ welfare.

“The clubs can sign up with airlines for sponsorship or deals that would make it possible for their teams to travel by air… These airlines will have the opportunity to advertise their brands through the clubs. I also think that the Nigerian Premier Football League (NPFL) should also come hard on clubs in their guidelines by making it compulsory for teams to be airlifted to distant venues.

“Since clubs are not serious about paying premiums on players’ insurance policies, the frequent robbery attack is enough to show that something drastic has to be done to protect players in the country.”

Ex-international and Abia Warrior’s Assistant Coach, Ike Shorunmu, believes that the current security challenges in the country have made it pertinent for a well-tailored strategy to ensure the safety of players to be put in place.

“The way things are structured in the country, players will continue to get poor treatment when travelling for away games. The alternatives to road transportation are the railway system and air transportation, but there is no good rail network in the country. So, strict measures have to be put in place to ensure that players get the best treatment when travelling. In South Africa, players are well taken care of, and the South African league is even better structured and organised than the North African leagues.

“Nigeria needs good structures that would take teams from one part of the country to the other. In the absence of that, the clubs should arrange for adequate security whenever they are travelling for away games.”

Former Super Eagles defender and Bendel Insurance of Benin player, Ifeanyi Udeze, insists that clubs should devise means of making long journeys by air because the effect of road trips on the players accounts for their poor performance on match day.

According to him: “Travelling by road to honour league games is not an easy task. I pity the players. They face a lot of danger, especially now that the country is facing security challenges. These players are humans; they need to be treated with respect. Travelling by road to honour a league game requires confidence and commitment.

“In the 1980s and 1990s when I was playing for Bendel Insurance, when my team travelled by road, apart from the fear of attacks by armed robbers, my legs were always weak after long journeys. I found it difficult to sleep well because of the discomfort on the bus. So, it affected me on match day.

“Sometimes some players pretend to be sick or injured to avoid traumatic situations that they would face on the road. All these things still happen today in the league. When club managements say they don’t have funds to improve players’ welfare, I am surprised.

“Do you know that some club chairmen use clubs’ names to get money from companies, but fail to inject the funds into their teams? They leave the club’s financing to the state government. That is why the private sector should run football clubs in the country. Adequate contracts have to be signed to ensure that players get deserved treatment when travelling for league games,” he said.

Coach Isaac Mbaegbu of Heartland Football Club of Owerri, believes that Nigerian clubs will do better if they are given the same opportunities that are available to North and Southern African sides.

He admits that travelling to away games by road and playing a game less than 48 hours after arrival takes a heavy toll on the players such that they fail to produce what ordinarily should be easy for them to do.

“The physical effects of such long travels are enormous. That was why the former management of Heartland FC, led by Chibuzor Etuemena, agreed with Dana Air to fly us to away games. That was a period when Heartland could compete favourably in the league. But things became difficult for us when the current leadership could not maintain that partnership due to certain reasons.

“The current management is trying to fix things and make travelling less cumbersome for the team, but here is a country where the roads and other things are not right. So, we are forced to take the same route to games.”

Countering the claim that travelling by road is cheaper and cost-effective, a top official of Go Round FC of Port Harcourt, China Acheru, said that clubs stand to save cost by travelling by air even in these dire times.

Acheru, who for over a decade was the media officer of the defunct Dolphins Football Club, said that the only issue with making long trips by air is the inconsistency in match fixtures.

He said: “Go Round FC only played in the NPFL for two seasons and we ran a very tight budget. When I was at Dolphins, if we were going to a place like Kano, our budget would be about N1.8 million, N2 million, or N2.5 million. But at Go Round FC, we did it at less than N700,000 for those far-flung places. It is a privately-run club and we didn’t have endless funds from the government.

“We never flew to league venues. But when I was at Dolphin, we flew only when the league game came in between continental matches. That is, at Dolphins, if we had to play a game in Jos, we flew to Abuja and travelled by road to Jos. But on a regular league game, we never flew to any game.”

He said flying to games could be cheaper if the calculation is done right. “But being cheaper for the owners of the club is different from being cheaper for the managers of the club.

“Managers make more money when they spend more days on the road and more nights outside their towns. There is more money to be made in the fueling of the buses, players’ allowances, and accommodation bills. But when the teams fly, they spend just one day in the away town and the owners of the club will save money while team managers will not make as much money as when they travel by road, and spend more days outside their homes.

“There are a lot of things that ordinary people don’t know about. Flying is good because it takes fatigue off the players, although it doesn’t guarantee that you will win the game. But it helps the players to play to the best of their abilities if they are well prepared.”
He said the other problem that stops many clubs from flying to away games is the absence of airports and regular flights in most cities.

For the former secretary of the Club Owners Association, Alloy Chukwuemeka, playing the abridged format has always been the agitation by a few clubs, mostly the private clubs. But the majority of the government-owned clubs, who survive via huge government financing, don’t want it.

“Apart from the loss of subvention from government, those against the abridged format also argued that playing the league in an abridged form does not bring out the best in players in terms of performance and ratings,” he said.

He added that adopting the conference system might not produce the best teams for the playoffs because the best could be in one zone and are therefore unjustly eliminated by the process to the advantage of inferior sides.

He said: “The true test of champions is by seeing them compete against the best and emerging as the overall best. But when you divide the league into two groups of 10 teams, some top-quality sides might fall by the wayside because their group is star-studded, while the other group may not be as strong.

“Again, playing only 24 matches, instead of 38, will cost the team managers more as they will have no justification to demand full funding when the number of games has been cut by the system,” Chukwuemeka said.