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By Christy Anyanwu
Chief Executive Officer of VSO Football Academy, Victor Otabor, is one the few Nigerians working hard to sustain the country’s place in the global football map. Football is the one thing that unites Nigerians from all tribes and walks of life. This is more so when the national teams – Super Eagles, Super Falcons, Flying Eagles and the other soccer teams – play in international matches, whether at home or abroad.
Interestingly, younger football enthusiasts like Otabor have stepped into the shoes of the likes of late Moshood K.O. Abiola and Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, who sponsored successful football clubs in their lifetime. Individuals among the younger generation are setting up football academies, to discover new football talents for the country, and who could be linked up with foreign clubs, where would play and earn income to support families and invest in various projects.
In this interview, Otabor, who also set up a charity organization, Cook Foundation, with a Briton, tells the story so far in sustaining the football academy.
Give us a snapshot of what you are doing currently to benefit society?
First off, VSO Football Academy, which I set up, is based in Abeokuta, Ogun State. Also, I run a charity for the less privileged. We have about 21 children who are studying under our scholarship programme. These are children from indigent families, who never aspired that their parents would sponsor their education or give any form of training in the trades. By the grace of God, we are doing and affording the opportunity to get educated and have a decent place under the sun. I enormously enjoy doing this kind of charity.
That’s where my soul really is – to give someone a lease of life, especially kids. You know, there are so many kids. I inherited the heart to give from my mother, because she was such a giver. I never knew my mom was into that. She sponsored not just kids, but parents too.
She would take parents and collect their kids and begin to sponsor and help them. Even when I go home on holiday because I left home very early, we would see other kids. They were always around the house with mom all the time.
So, in essence, I believe I got that instinct from her. That how I started doing the same work I’m doing. I have always said to myself that anytime I retire, I want to retire having a foundation, having to look after children, put smiles on their faces with their parents. Thank God, it is what I’m able to do. Currently, we have 21 children. We pay their school fees and provide books.
Usually, somebody would tell me about what they are going through. My secretary, Franca, scouts for them. They are in Abeokuta and some are in Benin. The majority of the players I have in Abeokuta are homeless. They sleep in the stadium, no home to go to. If I close that academy today, they will go back on the street. So, what we do is that we feed them twice a day. They play football. They play coaches league. I can gladly tell you that one of them, Lekan, has just been picked up by 3MC Shooting Stars, Ibadan. He’s just signed with them. So, that’s my pride.
When and why did you start the academy?
The academy was established in 2015 to help discover, train, develop and help secure clubs, both within and outside Nigeria, for talented young football players. I just want to give something back having played myself. But then, what actually lured me into it was seeing kids’ smiles. If I didn’t have this academy, Lekan would probably not have realized that he has the potential to be snapped up like that by the club. I didn’t get any money from 3MC. But the fact that he’s been signed up by them, will give him a future from there.
I have people who run the academy. The Coach and Team Manager is Eniola Henry Ohaiwe. He is the main person that oversees the day-to-day operations of the academy. I am excited going to Abeokuta to see the boys. They’re all my sons.
Interest has grown in female football. Are you looking in that direction too?
Yes, with time, I’m going to add some women, and have a female team too. Really, female football has gained global popularity. The main goal is what is behind it – it is a non-profit organization, and it is self-financed.
What is the name of the charity organization you run?
It is called Matthew Cook Foundation.
Why Matthew Cook Foundation?
The reason why I use Cook is that I was talking about my charity while I was in Britain, where I work. I was talking with a man and his wife. I told them how I saw a girl doing her homework with my streetlight. Her family had no light in their home. I saw her a second time. Again, I saw her for the third time.
So, I my gate man called her and I made inquiries. So I bought a prepaid meter and gave them a place. That is where they are living now. The little girl is so happy. I just shared what I was doing with them. Four hours later, he came up to me and said, “Your wife is crying.” These are English people – British. I said, uh-huh. He then said that he wanted to sponsor at least 10 of the children. I couldn’t believe it. I told him I would get back to him the next day and we would talk about it. When we met again, I said, ‘Look, 10 children is a lot. I want to affiliate you, if you don’t mind. I want to name them after you, so that you can just continue. He said, no. We should just put it together. I said, okay. I’ll add my children to your own so that we’ll both run it. He agreed with that and then gave me 2000 Pounds Sterling. Just like that! He added another 1000 pounds the next day. I called Franca, because the money was a lot. That was how we increased the number of children. We have 21 now.
He called me the other day and said, ‘Victor, I have raised some money. I want to give it to you to support the charity. I said he should hold on, and told him that we still had some left over. He wondered how that could be. So, I explained that we had about 1700 pounds sterling. He could not believe it. I said the money would keep us going for another year. He just could not believe it. It’s good to be transparent. You see, I had already added my own money as well to fund the running of the foundation.
We don’t care where that child is from as far as he or she is from this country. Kids are not meant to suffer. I saw some of their pictures, the size of smiles on their faces, I was tearing up. It gives me so much jo . That’s the empathy I have.
I understand your mum is late. Please talk a bit about her.
Yes, she is. I wish that she was still alive. She had already passed on before I realized the gravity of what she had done. My brother told me that mummy was doing all these when she was alive. Even my son during COVID-19 rang me one day he said, ‘Dad I used to see grandma sharing clothes, sharing rice in a bowl.’ He used to join her in the sharing. He was about five years old then. He said he would want to do that. I thought he was just buying a bag of rice to share to the community, he was asking me how much is a bag of rice, how many houses are on my late mum’s street.We counted 21 houses. He said he would send me money to buy a bag of rice for each house among other things. This boy sent close to 2,000 pounds to me. I remember that the people asked if it was not the government that was sharing it. My sister recorded it on video and said that it was Iya’s grandson who shared the rice. They acknowledged Iya used to do so in her lifetime. Seeing people smile gives me joy.
What lessons have you learnt about life?
Empathy and patience, which is hard by the way. I have learnt that you should not hurt anyone and the main one I will tell you is not to discriminate especially with children because you don’t know what they will become tomorrow. If I knew what I know now years back I would have started a long time because now it gives me added joy. When I see those kids smile I’m glad. Because when kids smile at you it’s real because an adult we can fake it but when a child is smiling you can actually see the child is happy.
