Hon Kunle Soname, chairman, Remo Stars, a Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL), club is a big name in Nigeria and European football markets. In this interview with NICHOLAS UWERUNONYE, he explains the journey so far and how difficult it can be for privately owned clubs in Nigerian League.
Earlier in the year, the domestic football industry lost two titans in the persons of Chief Emmanuel Iwuayanwu, proprietor of the defunct Iwuayanwu Nationale which later became Heartland FC, and Sen. Ifeanyi Ubah. How would you react to this?
Chief Iwuayanwu, may his soul rest in peace, was a trail blazer. He was someone I admired a lot when I was younger. And that stems from the fact that he chose to invest his resources in the game of football. There are not too many people like that. There so many people in his class in those days that had so much more resources than him. But he chose to put his resources into football. That I admire from him. He has ran his own race and may God just bless his soul. Kudos should be given to the likes of MKO Abiola. This is because without people like that, probably we would have made same mistakes. We are here now because we were able to learn from the mistakes they made. The good things they did, we took it on board. And the mistakes they made, we were able to address.
Could you be specific on some those things you think were takeaways that has helped Remo Stars to sustain itself so far?
We believe that sustainability in football has a lot to do with structures. We came to realize that probably that was what was lacking back then. But of course, you can’t blame them. They had nothing to learn from. Now we have the benefit of having what they did on record to learn from. So whatever we do, we would always give kudos to the likes of Iwuayanwu, John Masteroudes, the likes of MKO Abiola, even to Ifeanyi Ubah himself. It takes a lot of courage to put your money into football. Since we are coming from behind them, we are able to learn from where we think they faltered. That is what has got us here. I am sure that when we go, others will come, learn from what we have done and take it a notch higher. So we need to give them kudos because they had absolutely nothing to learn from, unlike in our case.
The lessons you learnt regardless, but one can’t take it away from you that you did posses grit in this job of running a club in Nigeria.
To be honest with you, many things happen by providence when good things happen, it is not because you are smarter, or that you are brilliant. When situations don’t favour you, it is not because you are not as brilliant as other people. In the game of football, the difference between winning a game and not winning it is the ball going into the net. It is as simple as that. But having said all these, there is a learning curve in football; football is a game of twists and turns. The teams that went on relegations have done nothing wrong. When not too good things happen to you in football, it is for you to take lessons from that situation. I can remember, in 2017, we were also like Doma United and Sporting Lagos. We got promoted for the first time. But we also got relegated. In 2019, we got promoted and got relegated again the following season. But we were able to determine from those incidents, what we should or should not be doing as a club. We hope we have figured it out. The Clubs didn’t go down because they were not smart, or that they didnt have players. They just needed to sit back and check. There must be something to learn from that experience. We like to see more of private sector players in club football. Because we firmly believe that it is the way to go. All successful clubs in the world are privately run. So ours cannot be different. Yes, government can intervene, but it shouldn’t be in the day-to-day running of a football club. No. It is not sustainable. That is why we are where we are today. If our clubs were private sector driven, we would have been far ahead.
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Exactly what is stopping private sector participation from happening in Nigeria?
The issue in football is funding. If the league is not well funded, private sector won’t come in because of the risks involved. And without the private sector coming in, funding will not come. So it’s a case of, the chicken or the egg, which comes firs?. So it’s a dilemma. So as it is we are still waiting. Another way is, federal government might just decide that it wants to be serious about football and decide to give a development fund to the game, say N10 billion or N20 billion, just like they did in Nollywood. Such intervention can help if it is properly managed.
That brings us to this question you so much love to dodge. How significant is your interest in football?
Significant as you put is relative as you know. What might look significant to me might be small for Dangote. What is not significant to me might be so in the eyes of say my car driver. Football is something I truly enjoy. I derive a lot of joy from it. No matter how much I spend on it, it is for my personal joy and satisfaction. Some people are into properties, others into women, we can’t fault them for that. It is personal thing. But what I enjoy is football; whether it is just kids playing or adults. In our facility in Ikenne, we have 10 year olds coming to play football. There is no game that I don’t watch. So you only do what gives you joy, coupled with the fact that I am retired, I have enough time to be involved in football.
Are there plans to make the annual ValuJet Competition international?
Yes there are plans, really. Yes, I own Valuejet but I don’t run it. I am the chairman of the aviation company but that I don’t run it. I know, however that they have plans to make it international. I can say that with discussion with the Valuejet management, plans are already under way to make the tournament bigger. It will not just be one foreign club that we are bringing here, but more than one. But you see it is developing. Look, there is one that we were invited for in Enugu; the Coal City Tournament. It is going to be a fantastic tournament. That is what we need in this country. There are teams from Sierra Leon, from Brazil, about two to three other countries. So these are the kind of the things we need in this country.
