Centus Nweze Reporting
Recent decision by sports writers in Kwara State to give Kwara United a media blackout may just be the least of the club’s woes after reports of why it lost its second leg game to RSB Berkane, Morocco, late last year CAF Confederation Cup, CAF CC began to emerge, over the weekend.
The Kwara State owned Clubside lost the continental title match by 2.0, squandering a first leg advantage of 3.1.
But with Saturday night decision of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, SWAN, Kwara State Chapter, to boycott media related activities of Kwara United over alleged repeated attempts at shielding the club from media scrutiny and decision of its coach to resign, the North Central based club appear to have had it coming.
“What you see happening is a culmination of very poor decisions being taken at club management level since our continental campaign last year,” explained a backroom staff source to the newspaper.
“Imagine having to travel by road to Morocco as backroom staff that included team doctors, phisios and player psychologist.
“But we did travel by road to Morocco because we were told that there was no money to put us in a plane,” explained the source.
The land space between Nigeria to Morocco in North Africa has large territories of ungoverned spaces home to insurgents who kidnap people for ransom money.
“We could have been kidnap victims now somewhere in either Niger or Mali, with federal and state government negotiating our ransom money now,” the club official said.
Result of such led to critical members of the team traveling by road to Morocco from Nigeria under hazardous circumstances to play the away match which the team lost.
At the weekend, the club’s gaffer, Abdulazeez Mohammed, resigned his position as Technical Adviser after his team lost by 2-0 to Nasarawa United FC of Lafia at the New Jos Stadium, in Plateau.
It was part of the agreement reached between him and the club management which was a two match ultimatum given to him to halt the slide of Premier League side after losing to Enyimba in Aba.
The team only struggled to beat Akwa United FC in Ibadan, and lost its two straight away games to Plateau United and Nasarawa United, both in Jos.
Buffs however wonder whether the resignation is enough to stem the slide of the club.
Barely hours after the club coach resignation, sports journalist under the aegis of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, SWAN, Kwara State chapter, decided to boycott activities of the football club.
Dare Kuti, secretary of SWAN, explained in a news release that the decision though regrettable was necessary after its members being subjected to what he describes as strange sort of sports management that allianate media and other critical stakeholders of the beautiful game.
“The body language of the management of Kwara United portrays a strange kind of professional football administration where the media, by extension, openness, transparency, club image and therefore branding, don’t matter,” Kuti said.