COCKMENTRY

The recently concluded FIFA U-17 world club that took place in Nigeria was a big success judging by Nigerian standard and probably fair in the books of FIFA and foreign observers and journalist. The TV coverage was something that really amused me and I was very happy that we could local broadcast the competition to the entire country and indeed the world perfectly and with very clear signal. Though the broadcast rights generated a lot of controversy between NTA, DAAR communication and BON/OSMI .Daar communication was quick to let us know that it actually secured FIFA’s nod to broadcast the matches played in 5 centers on behalf of FIFA to the world, while NTA/BON/OSMI only secured the rights to beam it to Nigerians only. Daar’s broadcast of the competition shows that we are locally ready to showcase matches played in our league to our TV regularly and we can feed any foreign nation with signals from various stadiums across the country. The broadcast was flawless and I give kudos to DAAR communication that took it upon itself privately without government intervention to shoulder the broadcast responsibility, though the FG’s last minute intervention of upgrading NTA’s equipment from standard to High definition was another example of our unpreparedness. It actually didn’t materialize because they didn’t make it before the commencement of the competition. The matches were exclusively and comprehensively broadcasted all across the nation through BON/OSMI where the former is the association comprising of every TV station in the country including AIT which is an affiliate of DAAR communication. The difference between the matches showed on AIT and other BON/OSMI affiliated station is the commentary. Over the years, commentary of football matches involving Nigeria’s national teams on local TV were done by a prominent Nigerian who has over the years been the voice of football matches commentary. This commentator/s are affiliated to NTA and with the length of time spent on the job one would have thought they would have mastered the act over the years compared to western commentators or even their South African counterparts. Nigerian’s across the country weekly watch the English Premier League which is one of the best televised league/sport in the world are very familiar with world class match broadcast and reliable commentary. A good soccer fan will agree that you enjoy watching a soccer match with a good commentator anchoring the match. The commentator is like the manual book of a Soccer match, he/she is the guide of the viewers and he/she helps in identifying the players on the pitch and also helps in interpreting several laws and rules that guide the game when situation arises. Commentator’s gives in-depth analysis of teams and supply RELEVANT information to the viewers about the match and other factors related to it. Good commentary entails the commentator to give news of what is happening off screen to viewers who are focused only on the pitch cameras showing the actions on the pitch and also supply developing information from the side line and the fourth official. All this happen behind the camera and viewers can not see this because the cameras a mainly focused on the pitch unless an outside interference causes the cameras to focus elsewhere.

The commentators in the BON/OSMI studios are well know names in football match commentary and they have over the years failed to improved on their beer-palour commentary of matches broadcasted on BON/OSMI affiliated TV stations. Matches shown on AIT network has a foreign commentator and judging by the way he pronounces the names of Nigerian players and other teams one will know they are professionals. The commentators adds more fun to the match by his accurate and very relevant approach and information of the match been played. They accurate pronounce our team list and have a good and RELEVANT knowledge of every single player in the competition. They also have RELEVANT knowledge about history and culture of each host city where matches are played. All these facts are mentioned while matches are going on without deviating from the match itself. Our local commentators full all IRRELEVANCE, they don’t have an idea about other teams and when it comes to matches about Nigeria they discuss the match like a beer-palour setting. They run commentaries like they are been forced and they invite talk about irrelevant issue when the action in the game is not at its peak and quickly switch back to the match ONLY when Nigeria in attacking its opponents or in danger. Issue that does not concern the match are been freely discussed on air with their invited inexperienced co-commentator. An example was match involving an African country whose neighbors geographically are engrossed in a civil war, the commentator was discussing about the political issue of the country in relation with its disputed neighbour while the match was going on. This local commentators raise their voice on if the action is on the part of Nigeria and are completely quiet if its not favouring Nigeria .A match was played before the just concluded CAF champions league match involving Heartland of Nigeria and TP Mazembe, the commentator was actually analyzing the yet to be played CAF champions league match with his fellow co-commentators instead of focusing on the match at hand. Our commentators are killers of football matches and atimes you fall asleep just by listening to them doing damage to the action taking place on pitch. The football terms they use are only found in Nigeria Sports Dictionary, or how do you interpret words like “longish ball”, ”thorough pass” ,”a chester/header”. We did well in area of broadcasting the event to Nigerians and to the world and organization was good compared to what we know Nigeria for, though I have different view about our participation judging by the composition of our team which was rocked by age scandal, but I can still tell that with more hard work we can host any FIFA organized competition at any level ,but we really need to do away with these old commentators who refused to change and train new people to handle this very aspect of football match viewing.