Leadership (Abuja)
Salifu Usman
25 July 2008
Nigeria is believed to have the largest number of supporters of Manchester United of England supporters in Africa and this, the faithful Reds claim, will be on display this weekend when the Premiership Champions take on FA Cup winners, Portsmouth FC inside the Abuja National Stadium to round off the inaugural edition of TINAPA Invitational football fiesta.
" Man U fans alone can fill that Abuja stadium, you people will see. Our chapters from all over the country will be arriving from today to wait for the team. From Bakassi to Maiduguri, we are coming out en-masse to cheer our guys", said Danlami Ibrahim from Kano.
Already, chapters of the Club , spread all over the country have been mobilizing their members for the nostalgic trip to Abuja since organizers released the news that the UEFA Champions League winners will hit the Federal Capital City very early on Sunday morning from South Africa.
One of such chapters, formed over seven years ago by one-time FIFA Media Officer and Publisher of Todaysports, Paul Bassey, is said to be planning the trip from Lagos to Abuja in five luxury buses.
" How can you tell someone that you are a Red Devil but when the team came to Nigeria you could not even see them live. Thank God the gate-fee is affordable, we are all planning to be there at the airport to receive Baba Alex and the double Champions when they arrive. We are planning a massive invasion so that all Nigerians will see and believe that Man U is the greatest Club ever". Tickets for the matches are already on sale at ACCESS Bank offices Nationwide.
Manchester United stopper, Rio Ferdinand, who was in Lagos earlier in the year ,could not believe the warmth and love shown to him by thousands of Manchester United fans throughout his stay in the country.
"It was quite unbelievable. Unbelivable", mumbled the England stopper tyo the International media. " Its going to be crazy playing in Abuja because our fan base in Nigeria is awesome. Just like playing at Old Trafford".
Manchester United is arguably the most popular football club in the world, with over 330 million supporters worldwide, almost 5% of the world's population. The club was a founding member of the Premier League in 1992, and has played in the top division of English football since 1938, with the exception of the 1974-75 season. Average attendances at the club have been higher than any other team in English football for all but six seasons since 1964–65.
The club is the second most successful in the history of English football and by far the most successful of recent times, having won 20 major honours since the start of Alex Ferguson's reign as manager in November 1986..
They have won England's top division 17 times, one short of Liverpool's record of 18 league titles. In 1968, they became the first English club to win the European Cup, beating Sporting Lisbon of Benfica 4–1. They won a second European Cup as part of an unprecedented Treble in 1999, before winning their third in 2008, 40 years almost to the day after their first. The club also holds the record for the most FA Cup titles with 11.
Since the late 1990s, the club has been one of the richest in the world with the highest revenue of any football club,and is currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in football, and indeed any sport, with a value of £897 million (€1,333 million Euros or $1.8 billion dollars) as of May 2008.
On 6 April 2006, chief executive David Gill announced AIG as the new shirt sponsors of Manchester United in a British record shirt sponsorship deal of £56.5 million to be paid over four years (£14.1 million a year).[54] Manchester United now has the most valuable sponsorship deal in the world, due to the renegotiation of the £15 million-a-year deal Juventus had with oil firm Tamoil.[55] The four-year agreement has also been heralded, by extension, as the largest sponsorship deal in British history, eclipsing Chelsea's deal with Samsung.The 1998–99 season for Manchester United was the most successful season in English club football history as they became the first and only English team to win The Treble — winning the Premiership, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League in the same season.
Manchester United was a founding member of the now defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs and its replacement, the European Club Association.
Sir Alex Ferguson has been manager of the club since 6 November 1986. The current club captain is Gary Neville, who succeeded Roy Keane in November 2005.
Players making the trip to Nigeria include captain Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand , Wes Brown , Cristiano Ronaldo , Louis Saha, Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs (vice-captain). Others are Park Ji-Sung , Nemanja Vidic , Michael Carrick, Paul Scholes , John O'Shea , Darren Fletcher , Mikaël Silvestre ,Carlos Tévez, new boy Chris Eagles , Fraizer Campbell and Danny Welbeck.
United, who are currently taking part in the Vodacom Challenge in South Africa, will play their last game on Saturday in Pretoria before arriving Nigeria Sunday morning.
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