With the return of football and every team now wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, Nigerian tailoring firms should be the global suppliers of such tops

Ayo Akinfe

(1) First of all, it is a delight to see football return. Nothing cures boredom like the beautiful game with its creativity. Football was actually the only thing the Taliban could not ban in Afghanistan. I do not know of one thing that unites humanity like football

(2) What has also been very refreshing is the way clubs have embraced the Black Lives Matter campaign. What we now need to see is diversity in the management of football. At the moment, there are too few black coaches, directors and administrators across the European game

(3) Just take the English Premier League for instance, how many black coaches and directors are there? Is anyone really going to tell me there are no qualified black coaches with UEFA badges out there?

(4) When I look at a club like Arsenal that enjoys unprecedented support among the black community I ask myself how can they get away with having no black directors on their board? It appears that social distancing does not only apply to their defending as Man City and Brighton will attest to but their diversity policy too

(5) Back to the issue of football tops, clubs have supply deals with the likes of Adidas, Nike, Umbro, Puma, Reebok, etc. They in turn source their tops in the Far East from countries like Pakistan, Cambodia, Burma, Bangladesh, Vietnam, etc

(6) It should embarrass the African continent that football tops with the inscription Black Lives Matter are being sourced from Asia. For starters, the Asians are not even interested in football

(7) Can someone please explain to me why no Nigerian Enterprueners have deemed it necessary to float the Black Lives Matter Clothing Company. It should apply for a patent to produce all kinds of Black Lives Matter memorabilia

(8) Just ask yourselves how many jobs would be created in Nigeria, how much revenue raised and how much foreign exchanged earned if we were producing Black Lives Matter shirts, shorts, facemasks, towels, curtains, bedsheets, blankets, key rings, etc. We should be the main origin that supplies all the major sports firms

(9) When you are the world’s largest black nation, it brings with it several responsibilities. As a people, we are simply not alive to that fact so never know how to respond to situations like this. Ask yourselves if China, India and Japan would ever allow European, American or African companies to produce Asian Lives Matter memorabilia. They would rather die than do that

(10) With today being Fathers Day, we should use it as a moment for sober reflection. Nigeria is the father of all negroid people or she is nothing!