by Aderonke Bello

Arguably most successful team in Nigeria are the female National teams and they experience the most negligence in the hands of football administrators.
Of course the National teams travelled for the FIFA World cup which took place last year in Canada without any adequate preparations, which consequently led to unsurprisingly terrible performance. Irrespective, it took an open letter from me to the NFF President to get them a decent hotel and a standard official bus.

Despite all these, some of the girls confided in me that their allowances were withheld and only provided with one set of kit that had to be washed by the players themselves in readiness for the next match. Shortly after the world cup, one of them went on her Facebook to lambast the FA and the moment I saw it I chatted with her privately and she took down the post. If not, she would have jeopardised any future prospect of selection to the National team.

Few days ago, the NFF Vice President, Seyi Akinkunmi told the press that Lesbianism is killing female football in Nigeria, only to retract soon after, claiming that he was misquoted. The question is this; why go there in the first place?

Similarly, a former female NFF board member said lesbianism is banned in Nigerian football, FIFA waded in and she denied, until her voice was uploaded on the internet. A former coach also said the same thing. But in actual fact are they disturbing you, and how do you correlate their footballing prowess or abilities with their sexual orientations?

Who says there are no homosexuals and bisexual in the male National teams. No one is addressing that topic but girls are accused of lesbianism. It smirks of social ignorance of the world we live today as well as sexism.

So what is anyone’s business with people’s sexual orientation? How does their sexuality affect your life? Why should you accuse all the girls of indulging in lesbianism and since when is what they do behind closed doors matter to you and vice versa. Going into the personal lives of lesbians or homosexuals is a trespass.

It is the nature of sports in general for females to wear tracksuits like their male counterparts, leading to some sports women to develop the affinity to wear trousers which is in line with their careers and a personal choice so to speak, making some people jump into wrong conclusions. Of course this is acceptable. Tomboyish attitude and dressing doesn’t make one a lesbian, so what’s your proof?

I think we should leave them alone and focus on developmental factors, people’s sexual orientation cannot neither attract nor distract sponsors for the league, it cannot reduce the numbers of walk over in the football league. It cannot win or lose games. It cannot provide common sense in the words of Ben Bruce so what’s the fuss? Why not do the needful to women football rather than start castigating them.

However it becomes a problem when they’re seen or captured in the act, when they come and harass you sexually or when they come out in the open to talk about it. Such player should rightfully be sent to 14 years imprisonment, as stipulated by the law of the land.
Whether Nigerian female footballers are lesbians or not should be irrelevant as long as they perform to the best of their abilities on the field of play. They need help and support rather than castigation. The league needs help, female football should be rescued. Live and let live.

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