MANCHESTER CITY vs. CHELSEA

MANCHESTER CITY vs. CHELSEA

Something really changed about the “fun” everyone associates with a Champions League match this past weekend. Aficionados of the English Premier League (EPL) and the Spanish La Liga over here at Minna know that the matches that draw crowds to viewing centres (and so are money-spinners for the operators of these viewing centres) are those involving Manchester United Football Club, Real Madrid Football Club, Barcelona Football Club, Arsenal Football Club, and Chelsea Football Club. The other Manchester-based football club that has been growing in prominence these past years, the Manchester City Football Club, is not something of a fan’s favourite yet.

This point should be of interest to the EPL and the owners of major football clubs across Europe. Football fans in Africa are not readily swayed to just be ardent supporters of any club because its owner is some foreign billionaire who has injected money to the EPL. Really, Roman Abramovich investment in the Chelsea Football Club (CFC) came at a most auspicious and fortuitous moment in circa 2004 when his venture ensured that the CFC won back-to-back Premier League titles with the charismatic and dashing Jose Mourinho at the helms of affairs back then.

This was a moment people were just synched up to appreciate acute and brilliant business people like Abramovich and his like and folks all over could relate to Abramovich’s instant success story that was underpinned on smart investment. Maybe all this feeling permeated the people’s consciousness because Nigeria’s economy back then was in the ascendancy. To be called a fan of Chelsea all these past years is to have a feeling of calm self-important and an unassuming gentleman’s bearing. True, the “Abramovich Factor,” if you will, influenced behavioural patterns amongst Nigerian males; a “Chelsea Fan” is uncouth, does not associate with yobs, and tends to be honest overall. This has been my social-observation analysis thus far. However, this feel-good thing changed this past Saturday when Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) played Chelsea Football Club in the final showpiece of the 2020/2021 season at the Estadio do Dragao at Porto in Portugal. Suddenly, an army of fans trooped out to support MCFC.

Where from? One wondered in private reflection. Oh, oh, there is a clear identity to this mass of supporters. These are principally Northern Muslim males, true supporters of Manchester United Football Club, Real Madrid Football Club, Barcelona Football Club, Arsenal Football Club but they won’t root for Chelsea. Their expressed feelings and raucousness, though subtly done, is achieving the level of intolerance and political. You just heard one of them blurt out that Kai Havertz is a Jew hiding in Teutonic clothing. Now, you sensed you have a grasp of the situation. Oh, the owners of MCFC are Muslim Qatari billionaires who have been using sports to promote Islam (check out the cases of Nigerian athletes who have been lured to fly Qatari colours at international athletic meets and who do this under new Islamic identities and names).

It is true that Roman Abramovich is Russian Jew who has just recently been granted Israeli citizenship, but does Abramovich possess hidden sensibilities on the Jew-Muslim divide? This is not so because Roman has a number of Muslim players flourishing at Chelsea, viz: N’Golo Kante, Kurt Zouma, Antonio Rudiger, Hakim Ziyech, Edouard Mendy. Whilst Northern Nigerian Muslims and Muslims the world over saw a pending “war” that Saturday in the context of Man City/Chelsea-Palestine/Israel, I was just worried that football was losing its cherished symbol as a bastion of peace. I was not surprised that the victory of Chelsea was a source of distress to a large chunk of Northern Nigerian football fans resident in Minna.

Sunday Adole Jonah,

Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State

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