The ozil effect

Mesut Ozil, one of the all-time greats …
Throughout the summer we heard calls for a marquee signing, and a suggestion that Arsenal under Wenger could not only not compete at the high end of the transfer market but actively didn’t want to do so. Some fans suggested that was because Wenger and the Board were trying to fleece the loyal supporters in order to feather their own nests, whilst others maintained that the reason was a dithering out of touchness with the realities of modern life. It seemed fashionable at the time for the media to portray The Arsenal as a once great club whose stubbornness and old-world values would confine them to forever play second fiddle to the truly great and lavishly funded new-era mega clubs. The views of some fans were even less charitable.

And then came Özil, and for a while everything changed. He was the greatest midfielder in the world, Madrid were mad to sell him, The Arsenal were back, he was the signing of the summer. All these sentiments and more were expressed with varying degrees of sincerity and politeness on TV and in the papers while the Twitter world was awash with pride and envy. All through the Autumn a newly confident Arsenal eased the ball about the park, with Özil’s orchestrations seeing an inexorable rise to the top of the table and Champions League qualification. The memories glow and linger: the ball plucked from mid-air and delivered on a plate to Giroud; the first time drive and assist to destroy Napoli; the brace against Norwich; the telepathic combination with Ramsey before passing the ball into the Tigers net, and always, always vision and grace, even when juggling gum. The Arsenal had found their man, and although clearly not genuine title contenders, they were at least able to provide a different narrative for the press and compelling evidence that despite the inexplicable stumblings of the heavyweights, the Premier League was the best in the world.

And all of this was fine for the vested interests (so ably served by their punditry puppets) in October and November, because although top of the league, Arsenal could not win the title. They needed a striker (despite Giroud’s top form), their defence was still vulnerable (but it took an example several seasons’ old to illustrate this), there was no back up to Giroud (but step forward Lord Bendtner), Wenger doesn’t do tactics (oh really?), December’s run of fixtures would see them slip (almost but not quite, and if it hadn’t been for schedules and prehistoric refereeing, then not at all). So here we are, on January the whatever, and still The Arsenal are one point clear at top, having played everybody at least once, just like all the other clubs. And does this make everyone happy? Are the League Bosses pleased? Are the TV companies delighted? Are all the Arsenal fans ecstatic? Strangely – indeed bizarrely – it would seem very much not.

So now cue the most insidious whispers of all: Özil is not the player everyone thought he was. He is lazy. He goes missing. He was only good because of Ronaldo. He doesn’t tackle back. He isn’t really cut out for the hardest league in the world. He is another Arsenal pretty boy. He wasn’t worth the money, because he isn’t a match winner. And do you know what, people who have played and watched football all their lives (and some who have played at the very highest level) choose to believe these vile slanders. And because they pass on these ideas, so to do all the young Twitter warriors, and, no doubt in time, so will some of the supporters, who will inexplicably start to doubt and to jeer and possibly to create an atmosphere where one of the greatest players of all time loses confidence and decides that playing for The Arsenal isn’t such the great idea it seemed back in October. And that will be job done for those who can’t bear the thought that success might be honestly earned and planned for, for those whose snouts are firmly in the oil-fueled slush bucket, for those who for their own strange reasons want to see a change of managerial regime at The Emirates. It is called misinformation and as Orwell predicted, whole sections of the media are devoted to saying the opposite of the truth. I leave you to guess at the reasons for this.

But these lies can and must be resisted. Believe me, Özil is one of the all-time greats. He does something that very few can do, for he takes the opposition out of the game. Good players look as if they are everywhere and create the impression that their side are playing 12 against 11. Great players make it seem like 11 against 10, for their vision reduces defences as surely as if a red card has been issued. Özil is a space maker and a game changer. He makes good team mates into great ones: great ones into legends. He is unique, and he is ours. Bother to look at him properly and you will see what Arsene saw, but what Jose only glimpsed. Savour every moment, shout his name out loud, defend him against the doubters and above all be proud. He is very, very special, and if you can’t see that you either don’t know your football or you have sold your soul.

And perhaps most importantly, my daughter Katy, all 10 years old of her, wanted an Özil away kit for Christmas more than anything – and I seriously wouldn’t recommend getting on the wrong side of her….

Tim can be found on Twitter @foreverheady .

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Deregulation of the national minimum wage: pros and cons

Since the federal government signed the wage bill into law in the year 2009 there has been a centralized wage structure for the civil service of the federation. The federal government had continually urged states to improve their salary structure so as to meet the new minimum wage.

In this write-up the minimum wage refers to the amount of #18000 that is minimum salary a worker in the Nigerian civil service is expected to be paid either at the state or federal level.

As with Nigeria where a lot of things goes wrong, since the signing of this bill into law only a small number of the states have actually complied with this legislation. In a country where the official price of kerosene is #50 per litre and possibly only the president’s wife could get the commodity at that price while kerosene regularly sells for between #100 to #200per litre, you should not be too surprised. The state are not exactly too much at fault as most of them cannot possibly pay their workers at that price. This then brings to our mind a question we’ll like to ask:

·         Why did the federal government agree on a minimum wage when it knew that individual state would clearly not be able to pay.(considering that this has cost the states billions of naira in respect of industrial actions from the workers that try to demand the implementation of the minimum wage as they view this as their entitlement)

To correct this initial mistake the government at the centre is looking to pass into law another bill that would allow the states to negotiate the terms of pay with their workers on their own terms.

There are many plausible reasons why intellectuals would support the deregulation of the minimum wage, the first being that all states of the federation do not have equal financial capabilities and so for instance it might be possible for Lagos or Rivers to pay #18000 minimum wage other poorer states might not be able to pay. In Nigeria most states depend on the federal allocation to survive and the quota for sharing federal allocation in Nigeria doesn’t favour the weak states. Rather it’s the richest states that get more share of the money.

Another reason is not far-fetched as we have witness times without number, the fact that there is a set minimum wage actually impoverishes the poor states as the civil servants in the states usually embark on industrial actions to demand that their state government increase their salary to meet up with the ‘’minimum wage’’ and making the states lose precious money to Industrial actions.

But is that all there is to the argument? On the other side there are those of the view that the minimum wage is the only thing helps to regulate and check the activities of governors that might try to take advantage of its civil servants. Since corruption is so widespread in Nigeria it won’t be hard to find states governors that would do just that if the minimum wage is deregulated.

Another side of the coin is that it might reduce the power of the labour unions. It would surely reduce the power of unions in the country to collectively bargain for things from the government as there would be so much disparity among the pay of the labour force across the country.

In the middle of all these talk to deregulate the minimum wage, we must look for alternatives. One of such is to try to reduce disparity among the federal allocation shared to the states or better still the money should be shared while paying regard to population of each state as the money is the ultimate make or break for the states to determine if they can afford to pay the minimum wage or not.