Last week, Rivers United FC of Port Harcourt coached by Finidi George lost their home match in the ongoing 2025/2026 CAF Champions League against The Pyramids FC of Morocco.
Finidi George And Rivers United’s Continental Setback
Until that match, United were the last Nigerian football club still standing in this season’s quest for continental glory. The 3 other clubs from the league pursuing continental trophies had been knocked out in the very early rounds.
Like all the Nigerian clubs that have been participating in the various continental club competitions in the past decade (at least) Rivers United FC also merely succumbed to what was already very well known — the vast superiority of the performance of clubs from a few countries in Africa that have become far more advanced than Nigeria in developing their domestic leagues.
The Structural Crisis Behind Finidi’s Challenge
Without question, domestic Nigerian football has been in serious decline despite all efforts and pretensions to the contrary. It is no surprise that once-eager multinationals to be a part of the most-followed and most-popular sport in Nigeria, have been shying away from having a relationship with the leagues.
‘Prayer and fasting’ are now needed in the corridors of Nigerian football administration to attract their slightest attention again.
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Although Rivers United FC have done tremendously well this season by surviving to this stage of the CAF Champions League, with the second leg still to take place later today in Morocco, it can take it for granted, or to the bank, that they have reached their final ‘bus-stop’. It may all end today!
The 4-0 trouncing of the Nigerian team at ‘home’ in Uyo, Nigeria, may be too high a mountain to climb.
A Familiar Continental Struggle For Nigerian Clubs
Incidentally, Rivers United FC are walking a road well-trodden by all Nigerian teams since one of them last won a continental trophy almost two decades ago.
Even Nigeria’s current Premier league champions, Remo Stars FC, the best and most professionally run club in Nigeria today, were handed a similar humbling experience by Mamelodi Sundowns FC of South Africa some months ago at ‘home’ in Abeokuta.
Kunle Soname, the chairman of Remo Stars admitted the yawning gap that exists these days between Nigerian clubs and those in a few African countries that have advanced the development of their domestic leagues. These include South Africa and some Maghreb countries – Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria.
Why Finidi George And Nigerian Coaches Face An Uphill Task
These countries have significantly improved their infrastructure; they pay very high wages; they keep more of their players at home rather than racing to Europe on the migration train; they play on improved football grounds and facilities; and provide first-class television coverage without which the football business can never thrive!
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Somehow, Nigeria has not managed to do any of these things well enough to alter the declining slope of her football.
Here, clubs can’t keep their best players; the playing grounds are not good enough; coverage is limited and not of high quality; allegation of corrupt practices still hangs over the league organisers; there is a dearth of truly outstanding stars to lighten up the leagues; and every trip around the vast country by teams by road is an ‘accident’ of insecurity waiting to happen.
These are not the ingredients that will produce a league that sponsors will fight over! Indeed, the leagues have been without any sponsorship interest for over a decade!
Finidi George Deserves Respect, Not Harassment
It is under this condition and atmosphere that retiring ex-international players from Europe, loaded with first-class coaching certificates, return to join the coaching ranks in Nigerian clubs trying to pass on their knowledge and gathering invaluable experience.
It never works out well for enough because the architecture of development needs to be fixed first. When they attempt to get into the national teams as coaches their ‘failures’ in the clubs are dangled before them and they are ‘rejected’ and asked to go get more experience. It is a frustratingly endless cycle.
The results of matches played at continental level by clubs handled by some of these coaches are often abysmal, and do not reflect the coaches’ true capability. Instead, they are a measure of the failure of the country’s domestic football and leagues.
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That’s why what happened to Finidi George last week, following the loss of Rivers United FC in Uyo, is unkind, unjust, unjustified, and totally reprehensible. The team’s defeat should never be attributed to his coaching deficit, but to a bigger malaise in Nigeria’s football as a whole.
It was most unfair for some disappointed fans to waylay, harass, abuse and condemn Finidi despite having done so well to take Rivers United FC as far as he did in this year’s very difficult and challenging CAF Champions League.
Retiring Nigerian international players who turn coaches cannot come with any magic wand to transform weak club teams, built on weak structures, into African champions.
Finidi George’s effort should be acknowledged, and he should be accorded respect, credit and encouragement, and not harassed by a few disgruntled and disappointed fans as happened last week. Let them go and tell football administrators to fix Nigerian football first, and leave poor struggling Nigerian elite coaches alone.
Particularly, they should leave Finidi George alone! He has done more than a yeoman’s job this season!!
