In our program, I introduced our members to one critical business framework: product minimum viable quality. I postulated that quality without the construct of cost is meaningless. Yes, you pay $402 per year for tuition and board in a federal university in Nigeria, and yet you are expecting to have Harvard University quality which costs north of $67, 000.
You spent $300 in Transcorp Hilton Abuja and yet you expect the same quality in the Oshodi “hotel” where $12 can cover your head for a night. Those make no sense – and that is the reason why China is winning the world. Even though it could make a high quality product, sometimes, it thinks it could price the customers out. So, you buy that Christmas toy for $2 which breaks down within two hours the kid is playing with it when the German version which costs $100 will last for months. But the problem is this: few have $100 to spend on a toy. Magically, the crappy China’s version wins the global market.
That takes me to European football. If France’s PSG picks Messi when we already have Neymar and Mbappe, can we still write that Ligue 1 has a competition for #1 or just looking for #2? Yes, who will finish behind PSG? Those three players could buy some 11 players in some Ligue 1 teams. You do not call that competition.
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I like how they do it in America: there is a team salary cap and once you hit that, nothing else can open. You can decide to use 70% of that cap and pay one person but you cannot exceed that cap. In Europe, it is lousy. You can rake a bank and assemble the best in one team, making it a game of money and no more football!
Arsenal legendary coach, Arsene Wenger, mastered that business, returning tons of profits for the club, by constantly developing and selling good players, even when winning silverware was dimming. The fans wept that Arsenal was not winning trophies when the team owners were smiling to the bank. The question is this: if it is competition on the field, there needs to be a balance in the accounting books.
A Messi-Neymar-Mbappe trifootballogy will be a super-threat and the global united nations football security should pay attention – and act! Sure, get better goalkeepers to lead the commissions!
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