Chelsea's Mikel John Obi: Nigeria's captain, leader, financier, travel agent
Chelsea’s Mikel John Obi revealed that he was the financier and travel agent for Nigeria’s Olympic football squad after a series of failures by Nigeria’s governing bodies left the team stranded at their training base in the United States.
Mikel John Obi led Nigeria to a bronze medal in football at the Rio Olympics, serving as captain throughout the tournament and scoring in the win over Denmark. In an interview with Goal, the Chelsea veteran discussed how he had to become a one-man front office for the Super Eagles.
Sometimes there was no food, sometimes there was no pitch to train on, there was no bus to go to the training ground. So all of this was what me and the coach had to figure out, and get money together.
Nigeria’s football team set up a one-month pre-Olympics training camp in Atlanta. In early August, the Washington Post reported that a “logistical mix-up” delayed their intended departure for Brazil. The mix-up turned out to be unpaid bills to the charter airline. Mikel John Obi arranged and paid for the last-minute flight.
There was just no flight provided by the Nigerian ministry. We planned to leave three or four days before the tournament, but we ended up leaving the day of our first game…[W]e got to the hotel, dropped our bags, grabbed some sandwiches, something to eat. A little bit of food. Then headed straight back to the stadium because we hadn’t even done our accreditations then, so we had to go there and wait in the line, do our accreditation.
It was absolutely hectic. I don’t know how we managed to go onto the pitch and win that game, it was absolutely mind blowing.
While the international publicity failed to spur any of Nigeria’s governing bodies to action, the Super Eagles’ plight inspired at least one benefactor. A Japanese plastic surgeon, Katsuya Takasu, pledged a donation to the team and performance-based bonuses to the athletes. After Nigeria’s bronze-medal game, Takasu presented Mikel John Obi and Nigeria’s coach with a total of $390,000.
When Takasu originally announced his intention, the Nigeria Football Federation stayed characteristically shameless by mouthing concern that “the integrity of the country is at stake.”
Gee, you would think that nearly having an entire team stranded in a foreign country would have taken care of the Federation’s semblance of integrity.
The football federation was not alone in its struggles for finances, positive publicity or integrity during the Summer Olympics. Nigeria’s athletics federation faced doping and financial scandals leading up to the Rio Games.
The Nigerian athletics federation instructed athletes to pay their own way, with a promise of reimbursement. Athletes were rightfully doubtful of this pledge. Many of them had watched a YouTube video posted by members of Nigeria’s U20 athletics team. The athletes described days of not eating and sleeping on the floor while competing in Poland. As a result, many athletes crowd-funded their Olympic travel.
Nigeria’s athletes deserve better than their federations. Fortunately they have Mikel John Obi. Hopefully Obi distributed Katsuya Takasu’s donation directly to the players and did not give the federation a single undeserved pound.
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