By Sam O’Femi Fasetire
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The recent stand-off between the national governing body of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) got me celebrating what I labelled as ‘the awakening of a giant.’
Not only did I think it was time to celebrate our revival from a hiatus and turnaround from a comatose situation, I also felt some level of self-delight that my previous article under the headline above had paved the way for the huge transformation of SWAN into a lion to be respected and feared.
Sadly, my joy was shortlived, as the fearsome warning sent out by the leadership of SWAN, plus a fiery order stopping their members nationwide from covering all NFF matters – starting with the upcoming general assembly – soon evolved into a soft landing for all parties to the matter … ending in what I have tagged ‘face saving concessions.’
I call them ‘face-saving’ because, from the word go, I wondered how SWAN would stop ‘sports inclined writers’ from all across Nigeria and the diaspora from splashing on social media info about the NFF’s confab. Surely, gone are the days when you could arm twist breakout bodies from taking shape under SWAN’s umbrella.
In those days, a group of sports writers with passion for covering community-based events came up under the tag of Grassroots Sports Forum (GSF), but they were promptly declared DOA (dead on arrival) because someone thought they were a parallel body to SWAN. That quickly spelt doom to a lofty venture.
However, that was back in the days, the year 2000, to be precise. But things have changed, and the terrain is just too open and so diversified nowadays than to allow for the type of blockage that SWAN wanted us to give the NFF. The first question I asked myself was: How will they stop content providers from spreading the unwanted reports all across social media in the name of online journalism?
But, thanks to God, someone found a way to spring peace between the two feuding interests, and we gathered that the initial reports about plans by the NFF to shut the fourth estate out of their organogram had been ‘fake news’ all along.
Whether an afterthought, half truth or smokescreen, we are happy that NFF have assured us that they will ‘forever’ carry SWAN along as an integral member of the federation.
So, with reassurances that SWAN would be carried along in the scheme of things at Sunday Dankaro House in Abuja, there was no need for the boycott to go ahead. Correlatively, we just had to celebrate this victory, regardless of how it came and no matter through whom it did. It showed that we are getting back to the days when SWAN used to be an entity that could not only bark but also bite (if need be). Whether it was a psychological victory or schemed success,
I just have to say kudos to SWAN’s national leaders for daring to speak out, stand tall, and show some grit in those few hours that their latest Cold War with the NFF lasted.
However, that’s not where it ends. Having won this exterior battle, let’s now look inwards and celebrate ourselves. Thankfully, there’s an awards night of excellence coming up, and many expectations are already flowing left, right and centre. Questions are also popping up, in and out, while anxiety is equally reaching a crescendo.
I don’t want to preempt what SWAN have in store for us, but I’d just chip this in – having won the recent Cold War, it’s time to prove that we can also defeat the breeze that makes someone’s memory fade away. Yes, it’s time to win the feud we all have with the lethal forces of time that make mortal Man forget the labour of our heroes past.
Sadly, that same bane of forgetfulness also hit me, as I failed to mention in my earlier stated first article on this subject matter a lot of SWAN members who have since passed to the great beyond.
So, in an alignment with what many colleagues, some administrators and a couple of fans posted in response to my initial list of SWAN’s All Stars 11 late icons, I present below a B-squad in a co-curricular mixed team of male and female deceased members.
Maybe this would pave the way for football to allow combined gender selections, like we see nowadays in mixed relays for athletics and in table tennis. Mixed teams are also seen in flag football, so why not in ‘real football?’
As we ponder over the possibility and reality of mixed teams of male and female affirming gender equality by playing on the same team, as we saw some years ago during an exhibition match for the Nigeria Football Awards, I present a follow-up squad of late SWAN members … and these are icons who even I had forgotten until I was reminded about them by many of our colleagues in various dimensions…
LATE SWAN ALL STARS B-SQUAD (MIXED)
1. Jide Dehinsilu
2. Esther Eleru
3. Matts Amedu
4. Mazi Njoku
5. Pauline Walley
6. George Udeh
7. Jones Taiwo
8. Anthony Obaseki
9. Henry Kalio
10. Timi Ebikagboro
11. Aniete Iyoho
Coach: Felix Okugbe
