The General Manager of Shooting Stars’ Sports Club Ibadan, Rashidi Balogun has stated that it is not true that the Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi does not like sports.
Balogun who pointed this out during an interaction with PMParrot reporters recently also asked a pertinent question that if the Governor does not like sports as being insinuated by some people, “why has he been backing 3SC since the inception of his government?
“To say Governor Ajimobi is not a sports loving person is a big lie. Before my tenure as the General Manager, it is on record that Governor Ajimobi had released N100 million and more as takeoff grant for 3SC before, and maybe the money was not used judiciously. That could be why the Governor is not happy with the club”, he posited.
When the GM was asked about the plans of the Management to ensure that Shooting Stars, the oldest surviving Nigerian clubside gets back to top flight as well as how to sustain the club in the premier division, Balogun said “sustainability of Shooting Stars is not something very difficult, all of us want to rise to the challenge but the bottom line is that nothing can be done without money. If you observe in the past, the money they normally give us was a bit better, though we were patching things up then. There was a time we ended up 9th. We moved from bottom to 9th. Later, Government started giving us N12 million”.
Explaining that the N12 million cannot effectively meet the needs of the club, Balogun said staff salaries amount to more than N13 million. “I have been on half salary since November 2015, not only me, Dimeji Lawal and Edith Agoye too. Those that are getting full salary are the players because they are the actors”, he said.
He also explained that the funds that accrue to Shooting Stars cannot be compared to what other clubs get. For instance, Enyimba gets N47million every month, Akwa United gets N52 million while Lobi, the league champions get N43 million.
“People said Governor Ajimobi doesn’t love football, I don’t believe so. I have it on my record where Ajimobi gave N100 million naira to them as take-off grant; I have it where he gave them N130 million as take-off grant but the man refused to give one kobo today because he said the money is not there. Maybe while he gave the money out, they did not spend the money wisely, maybe that was what got him annoyed but the sledgehammer is now hitting our heads. It is now a problem but it will not continue like that by God’s grace”, Balogun said.
Responding to the question whether Shooting Stars, registered as a sports club will have basketball, handball and other sports or it will continue to be underutilized as a brand, Balogun revealed that a name change was already being planned for the club. “I was with Mr. Busari Gbolagade, the Executive Chairman of 3SC yesterday and he promised that comenext season, he will change the name of the clubback to IICC or to Shooting Stars Football Club alone.
The man that changed the name to Shooting Stars Sport Club has a reason; if you ask him, there must be a reason for him to have changed it and maybe this is what is obtainable in the Western world; but the Yorubas have an adage “omo ti o ti ra to ni oun fe rin”,(a child that has not started crawling that says he wants to walk) definitely he will have bruises.
The ShootingStars Football club that we are talking about, we are praying for its survival. But when people see us outside, they believe that the club is okay. We will cater for Shooting Stars Football Club first before we say we want to have Shooting Stars Queens; that is the female soccer team; after which we can talk of having Shooting Stars Feeder Team and those ones are still within football, talkless of other sports”.
The recently established collaboration between him and members of the club’s supporters’ club was also a subject of discussion. Describing them as essential to his success, the General Manager explained with an analogy. “Talking about numbers, if 19, I mean figure 19, aspires to be 20 and fails to dine with one, can it be 20? That is it”, he said.
Continuing, he said “I am a necessary evil to them and they are also necessarily evil to me that is just it, because there is no how the management of a football club and the supporters of the club will not have misunderstandings. That is what is happening presently in Manchester United, they are all in support of Mourinho fighting the vice chairman of the club. The rapport will be there because when you are playing you will see men of 80, 90 years shouting ‘up Shooting’ so why wouldn’t they give us that support. When you are performing very well, they also reciprocate”.
Packaged by Lanre Olabisi and Wole Adejumo
