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Gbenga Ogunfuye

Many Nigerian athletes have suffered since retiring from sports due to poor remuneration or lack of plans for their lives after sport. KAZEEM BUSARI looks at the role insurance would play in their lives

Gbenga Ogunfuye is a forgotten man. Very few of his fans would hardly recognise the tall former striker who became a terror to goalkeepers in the Nigerian league as he was known to have scored most of his goals with headers. Fondly called Ori mi da (where’s my head) when he played for Eagle FC, IBWA, Amicable Assurance and Julius Berger in the 1980s, the then teenager appeared destined for a bright future in football but fate dealt him a blow that forever changed his life. He is now a shadow of his former self, sightless, and forever in need of help.

After missing out on playing in the national under-20 team, the Flying Eagles, Ogunfuye went in search of a greener pasture in the USA in 1990, playing for St Bradsburg FC and later Tampa Bay Brandon Indoor Soccer Club. He later became a coach for amateur clubs and also began helping Nigerian players to get opportunities to play abroad. But all these amounted to nothing when he lost his sight, his job, his friends, and much later discovered he had nothing to fall back on. He realised too late that even his meagre savings while he was playing was not enough to cater for his family’s daily needs.

He attributed his current status to the lack of proper retirement plan on his part and that of his employers.

“Most of the footballers then were employed by the organisations that owned the clubs. Before joining IBWA, I was promised I would be employed as a banker. It was a promise to lure me because I had several other offers from other clubs. On the same day IBWA offered me a role, I had another offer from NEPA. I thought working in a bank would be better than being at NEPA so I signed for IBWA in 1986, but the club was disbanded the following year,” Ogunfuye shared his plight with this correspondent while waiting to board a bus at Oshodi in Lagos.

The interview had to be on the road because it was difficult getting Ogunfuye in his comfort zone, at home; he was almost always on the move to reach whoever that could help him with money. His pride was gone, but he would never resort to street begging.

“I joined Amicable Assurance FC in 1988 and I thought I would later be employed as a broker but nothing like that happened. That was why I moved to Julius Berger in 1989,” he said.

“When I was playing for Eagle Oil, I was working for the company and playing for the club. I was employed as a store keeper between 1982 and 1983. But when coach Mark Malago came in 1984, we were converted to professional footballers, that meant no office work. Then, we earned more as footballers than being office workers.

“Despite working and playing for the company, we had no outlined plans for retirement. There were things we wanted to do as players outside football but events didn’t go as planned for many of us.”

He made losses in trying to help players move abroad, so he decided instead to feature his team, Youth Sport Academy, in the Lagos State league, but that too had its problem.

“I discovered that every time I brought kits from London for the team, some people working with me would steal them. I was alone in funding the club, I’m blind and no help came from anywhere; it was all the money I had. I had to quit when there was no money to continue,” he said.

He lost his sight to glaucoma and received treatment in London and Saudi Arabia, but nothing could give him back his sight. He had spent everything he had.

“Family and friends said it was caused by spiritual attack and that some churches in Nigeria would heal me of the disease, but I don’t believe in all that,” he said.

“After returning from Saudi Arabia, I began selling airtime recharge cards and also worked as a visa consultant. But in Nigeria, it’s difficult for a blind man to run businesses; some people would use your handicap against you in order to rob you. I was defrauded by some people who worked with me, and as a sub-dealer in the recharge card business, there wasn’t much profit so I stopped it.

Ogunfuye is not the only former sportsperson with a pathetic tale after spending his active years in sports. In fact, only a handful of past sport heroes in Nigeria survived above the poverty line. Many have died with nothing to their names even after representing the nation at international competitions. Many more are still alive with little or no hope of breaking out of their forlorn lifestyles.

Former Nigerian boxer, Billy Kid, reportedly died after living at a dumpsite as a destitute in Ebute Meta in Lagos, while the likes of another former boxing champion Dele Jonathan and a former football icon Peter Anieke are bedridden with illnesses. They still cry for financial help for treatments.

Anieke, with one of his individual awards in football

Anieke, nicknamed Eusebio, admitted he did not make money while playing for club and country in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was a dreaded striker that tormented Brazil at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico. But the 69-year-old now suffers from an unknown ailment with both legs swollen, rendering him immobile.

The former Stationery Stores and ECN forward said, “If not for the little but valuable help coming from former footballers, I’d say I’ve been totally abandoned. Nigeria doesn’t know I exist anymore. I called on former Director-General of the National Sports Commission, Patrick Ekeji, for help but none came. It’s a terrible thing to represent your country but they don’t remember you in times of your need.”

Moscow 1980 Olympic boxer, Ayodele Peters, is also still battling to make ends meet in Lagos. He holds up with threadbare belongings in a one-room apartment with leaky roof in an uncompleted building. That is all he can afford after losing his job without a retirement benefit or any form of insurance. He is lonely, broke and in dire need of financial assistance.

Nigeria’s number 1 wheelchair tennis player, Alex Adewale, and his team captain, Lateef Shodipo, are wary of the future. They have seen what become of athletes with disability immediately they retire from the sports and they are not willing to experience similar fate.

“I don’t want to beg on the streets and I don’t want to be a liability to anyone. I’m focussed on my future even as I play tennis. My disability has limited my options in the kind of jobs I can do and I know I don’t have any retirement package from the sports ministry, I’m concentrating on what I’ll do with my life after sport,” Adewale told our correspondent in a recent interview.

Shodipo shared his teammate’s logic. “If you observe, there are no physically challenged former sportsperson employed by the NSC. If the states had not employed some of us, many of us would be without any source of livelihood,” the captain said.

“My primary occupation is garment embroidery, that’s what I fall back on when I don’t have competitions to prepare for. But some of my teammates are not as fortunate so they have nothing else to do. Some of them became disabled at their adult stage and lost their jobs due to the injuries. Such people will find it difficult to go back to learning new trades. If there was a sports insurance policy to address this predicament, it would be easier for everyone.”

Abiodun Adewale (left) with Tope Ogunshakin during their non-title national heavyweight bout in Lagos…on November 23. File photo

Ex-Olympian, Jeremiah Okorodudu, understands what it means to hope for entitlements from the NSC when there are no other sources of livelihood for retired athletes. He has been there. He was owed money for his coaching services for years until the NSC approved that he be paid earlier this year.

He was particularly excited when Custodian Life Assurance Plc decided to insure 12 boxers for N24m in a boxing tournament at the National Stadium in November. It was the first time boxers would be insured in Nigeria.

“We didn’t have such privilege in our time. Boxers are the worst-treated athletes in Nigeria; they’re not respected and they’re the least paid. But this insurance angle is a new thing; it’ll bring hope to the boxers and the sport in general. At least if they’re injured, they’ll know it’s not for nothing.”

CEO/Managing Director of Custodian Life Assurance Plc, Larry Ademeso, admitted that no athlete would want to give his best if there was no assurance that he would be better off financially after tournaments.

“The introduction of the insurance package will spark the revival of boxing in Nigeria. There is no better way of demonstrating our commitment than to insure them against injuries and death,” he said.

A former national long jump champion, Yusuf Alli, found the situation particularly bothersome. He didn’t understand why the sports sector in Nigeria could not introduce an insurance system for the athletes.

“There’s no such thing on ground in Nigeria. We’ve argued for this many times in the past but nothing seems to be forthcoming,” the Athletics Federation of Nigeria official said.

“What I’ll suggest is for Nigeria to introduce a point system whereby athletes are rated based on points they garnered while representing Nigeria. For example, featuring at the Olympics could earn an athlete 10 points, winning medals at the Games could bring additional points, and other points could come from various other competitions. The NSC will now add up the points for each athlete to determine how much he gets from the government on monthly or annual basis after retirement.

“It pains me to see some of my colleagues begging for money or struggling to survive after investing the productive parts of their lives in sports. It is the living standard of former athletes that will either encourage or discourage younger athletes.

“In the US and Canada, most of their former athletes are doing well because they have a trust fund account that takes care of their needs after their sporting career. During their competition days, athletes are made to save part of their money in the account, so it is available for them when they retire. The problem is that some athletes don’t take education seriously; if they had education, things would be easier when they retire from sports.”

President of Nigeria Taekwondo Federation, George Ashiru, agreed that education plays a major role in getting retired athletes back to their feet when things look rough.

Ashiru

Ashiru should know better. His sports career was almost cut short when his right knee gave way during a tournament in the United Kingdom. The injury stopped him from fighting but the assistance he got from the taekwondo association he belonged in the UK helped him to get back on his feet.

“I’ve fallen back on what was my career plan, being a management consultant. Being an athlete was a hobby, it wasn’t the career plan. Whatever you do in sports in Nigeria is amateur, you can’t sustain your future with it,” the former international said.

“Anybody that starts sports as his career, putting up to 90 per cent of his energy and resources in the sport, which has a short life cycle on the average, is planning to fail. It could be the person is poorly mentored or there was no parental advice or he didn’t listen or his coach didn’t give him a wide berth. This is why every athlete needs a good manager who can monitor his career development.

“Many of the people I have coached and mentored are professionals in other fields today. Some of them are PhD holders, some are in the British government and some others are in various universities in Europe. In fact, I don’t think I’ve mentored anyone who has not turned out to be a graduate; because I started taekwondo as an undergraduate. When I work with athletes, I prepare them for life, not just to win medals at competitions.”

A vital policy he introduced when he became NTF president was athletes’ insurance package.

He said, “Taekwondo athletes are insured, it’s compulsory. I made sure each of my athletes got annual insurance of a minimum of N500,000. Right now, we’re insured to the tune of N28m for our referees and coaches. I’m doing this because I’ve had an experience where insurance covering injuries was all that was needed. I don’t want a situation where athletes are unable to practise due to sickness or injuries with nobody around to help them. They pay for it with small premiums every year.”

Ashiru had yet to share his administrative style with his opposite numbers at other sports associations. He believes it is an initiative that should come from the NSC.

“This kind of issues could be discussed at fora where the associations’ presidents all meet, but it’s not something I can influence anyone to adopt. Such initiatives are best introduced as policies from the National Sports Commission. The NSC can monitor such policies from its position and enforce the practice.

“It’s easy for me to come up with such idea in taekwondo because I’ve experienced what the lack of it could cause. I’m one of a few federation presidents that were former athletes. When I say former athlete, I mean that I’ve represented Nigeria. A knee injury forced me to retire and it was insurance in the UK that saved me. It got me the first aid after retirement. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t even want to come near the sport anymore. I would have to nurse the injury and it would have taken its toll on my finances and my psychology.

“The first person that touched me when I had the injury was the physiotherapist with the British Olympic team. I had no fear of continuing with the sport because the national association I belonged to in the UK was ready to assist financially.

“In the UK, it is illegal to enrol athletes and train them without proper insurance. All sports, I don’t know about chess, should have insurance for the athletes. I don’t know why a lot of people believe natural or religious insurance is enough for them.”

The League Management Company under its former chairman, Nduka Irabor, earlier in December launched a campaign to promote contributory pension fund for players in the Glo Premier League to address the issue of players’ suffering after their playing career.

An audio-visual campaign posted on the league’s body website depicts two retired players experiencing opposite post-career lives.

In the video, one of the players who was smart to have subscribed to a pension scheme while in active football was shown to be flourishing and living a good life while the other player who had no pension plan was in poverty, riding on commercial buses and calling friends apparently for financial assistance.

Irabor said of the campaign, “Players are the most valuable assets of the league and the LMC is very interested in their welfare not just during their active career years but also in their post career well-being.”

He said the Nigerian recognised the importance of compulsory pension savings and had encouraged both the private and public sectors to embrace pension scheme for the workforce.

“The LMC is therefore recommending the adoption of Contributory Bridging Pension by clubs for their players,” he said.

He urged clubs to contact the various Pension Funds Administrators on how to start schemes for their players. “Together we can safeguard our players’ future today,” he concluded.

Ogunfuye has learnt the cruel nature of life the hard way, but he is not going to allow any other person experience a similar thing to what happened to him, if he can help it. To this end, he has established a charity organisation – Less Privileged and Physically Challenged Empowerment Initiative – to help those who are physically challenged, especially in sports.

He said, “Athletes don’t usually plan for the future because they believe they can always get the money anytime. We forget that injuries can occur and they can lead to a sudden end of career.

“A civil servant may have about 35 years to work and plan for his life, but as an athlete, you live for that day. Accidents can happen at any time to force an athlete into retirement; it can happen to 20-year-old athletes and it will be the end of their careers. When there are no retirement packages for them, they don’t get anything and may end up living their lives in penury.

“When athletes are active, they only get a kind of pay-as-you-go funding. I’ll advise players to invest their signing-on fees wisely because what lies ahead may not be what they’re expecting. They should endeavour to save from the salaries, and they should try to negotiate a minimum of four years of contracts. Signing one-year contracts will not assure them of anything.

“Some of the Nigerian athletes who practised in Europe still end up broke because they didn’t spend wisely. When they had the money, they listened to praise singers and sycophants, but when the money is gone no praise singer will be there for them. When I had my sight and still had money, many people walked with me and rode along in my SUV. I would feed them on those days and give them money, but when my predicament came, family and friends were nowhere to be found.”