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UP KANO PILLARS! CHAMPIONS X 3 IN A ROW(Weekly Trust (Nigeria) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) For the third year in a row, Kano Pillars Football Club have successfully defended their Nigerian Premier League title back to back to back: 2012, 2013 and 2014. And actually this is the fourth time Kano Pillars have emerged Nigerian Champions; the first was in 2008. Announcing the feat, the South African sports channel Supersport.Com said "Kano Pillars have won the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) for the third successive time. They now join Iwuanyanwu Nationale (now Heartland) and Enyimba as the only Nigerian clubs to have won the premier division three times on the bounce. The Kano club emerged champions of the Nigerian top flight after defeating relegated Nembe City 40 on Sunday. The League Management Company (LMC) announced via its Twitter account: 'It is technically official! Kano Pillars are Glo Premier League champions for a third consecutive season.'" Indeed technically, as the Kano boys became champions and 'lifted' the trophy still with a game in hand this Sunday away to Enyimba of Aba, who are second on the table. Pillars have 65 points, a fourpoint lead over Enyimba with 61, making this final game just elementary. On next Sunday's match, Goal.Com reports Pillars Coach Okey Emordi firing up his players to play for pride as they file out against the Aba Millionaires so they can celebrate their title with sweet victory. Emordi charged his players to put on hold the celebration of their third title triumph until after Sunday. Emordi told Goal.Com that a good result against Enyimba would be the right way to celebrate the third league victory and also to prove their latest league win was never a fluke. Telecommunications giant and sponsor of the NPFL, Globacom, in a statement issued in Lagos Monday, congratulated the Kanobased team for winning the Premier League for the third time consecutively. The company commended the players, coaches and management of the Kano team for their hard work and tenacity which has seen them dominate the Glo Premier League in the last three years. Globacom added that the team should make footballloving Nigerians happy by going all out to win the next edition of CAF African Champions League. "We call on the management of Kano Pillars to start preparation in earnest for the CAF Champions League in order to perform brilliantly during the continental championship," said Glo. Kano Pillars (their slogan being SAI MASU GIDA! or VICTORY TO THE HOME LORDS!) have now gone into the record books as the first team from the Northern part of the country to win Nigeria league four times 2008, 2012, 2013 and 2014. The only other Northern teams to have won the Nigerian League were Mighty Jets in 1972, BCC Lions in 1994 and Lobi Stars in 1999. All other times, it has been the Southern teams that have dominated. Pillars, who play at the Sani Abacha Stadium at Kofar Mata and the Kano Pillars Stadium in Sabongari, both in Kano (and always before mammoth crowds of home supporters), was founded in 1990, the year professional league was started in Nigeria, as an amalgamation of three amateur clubs (WRECA FC, Kano Golden Stars FC and Bank of the North FC). After achieving outstanding success by winning the 2008 Nigerian Premier League, Pillars went on to reach the semifinals of the African Champions League in 2009, having eliminated giants such as Al Ahly of Cairo, Egypt. The club has produced outstanding, worldclass players such as Ahmed Musa, Sani Kaita (he of the South African Red Card), Ahmed Garba 'Yaro Yaro' and Abiodun Baruwa. All this goes to show there's enough football in Nigeria; yet most Nigerians look elsewhere for football all the time. Alas! An unflinching, fanatical, fundamental and enthusiastic support for the Nigerian domestic league is not shared by those who should. For example, even in the home of this very writer, the boys continue to ask "Kano Who?" whenever he talks so avidly of Kano Pillars; they easily get bored when taken to watch some of Pillars' home matches. They would rather watch Arsenal, Barcelona, Chelsea and Madrid. Sad! Shame! Back in 2009, this column complained bitterly about our young people's attitude towards domestic football, as well as all other things patriotic. The headline in many newspapers one morning that year "Embittered Man Utd Fan Kills Four Barca Supporters in Rivers" underscored that lament. The story had it that an embittered Manchester United fan ran over a group of jubilating Barcelona supporters with a van and killed four on the spot, just because Barcelona had defeated Man U. Another story same year was from Kogi State where "Young Man Kills Sister Over TV Football". It was said a son 'mistakenly' killed his sister by hitting her on the head with a blunt object because she refused to surrender the television remote control for him to watch Chelsea, when she wanted to watch something else. A struggle had ensued and he hit her with a club to her head, 'mistakenly'. But in defense of the 'foreign leagues', someone had mentioned to this writer that refuge in European leagues is not for lack of patrotism, but for lack of real alternatives. That the thuggery at our match venues makes them like political campaign rally grounds venture at your own risk; that we have hard and unfriendly pitches; that there is low standard of officiating (responsible for almost one hundred percent homewins for home teams, except for teams that cannot 'take care' of the officials); that even government prefers the foreign leagues (NTA, no less, would delay Network News for a European Champions League match:. Another rubbed it in by saying 'Look how the European players always come out looking as if freshly scrubbed and brand new. We must work on our own football. Sometimes the changes required are not much. Better pitches, for example, will go a long way. Our football is another indicator of our failure.' And then the corruption in the Nigerian football scene! Didn't Nigeria etch its name in football's hall of infamy for ever when just last year two football clubs in the amateur league recorded scandalous results that set tongues wagging in the football world? Plateau United Feeders which defeated Akurba FC by 79 goals to nil, while Police Machine FC trounced Bubayero FC by 67 goals to nil! Both matches were played simultaneously precisely to avoid matchfixing, as the winner with a better goal difference would have qualified for the Amateur National League Division III. Irony of Ironies! There is no field of endeavour that has united the citizens of this country and at the same time brought it international glory and recognition to the nation like the game of football. Isn't it a shame that the leadership of Nigerian football is still embroiled in little chicaneries of always inviting the wrath of FIFA suspension? Remember the football administrator who was banned by FIFA for demanding bribes? And despite Keshi winning the African Nations Cup in 2013, he was sacked, and unsacked! Kai! No matter! Ceasefire or no; Kaduna police Plateau gunrunner suicide or no; OritsejaforGate undercarpeted or no, Kano Pillars have won. Let us support them for the 2015 African Champions League Campaign. Up Kano Pillars! |