User:Football Club Adonai

FC ADONAI –THE HISTORY

OCTOBER 2008 TO MAY 2009

Adedotun, an upcoming entrepreneur was at the bodija branch of bank PHB ( one of the leading banks in Nigeria at the time) Ibadan to solicit for financial assistance through his account officer, Toyosi Oyetunji. While discussion was on, he made  mention of the fact that he would love to own a football club that would be detached from the mediocre practice of more than 98% of the football clubs in the country  at the time and that would be one that would have global reach with standard practices and facilities of international standard. This would also in some way afford footballers who play for the club the opportunity of being exposed to the best facilities as obtains in European football clubs that they so much crave. It was to be a model of some sort.

Like a dry bush in harmattan waiting for the fire, Toyosi bought into the vision and a meeting was scheduled for adedotun’s office later that day. The meeting held and part of the discussion was to immediately put a camp in place, appoint a manager and invite footballers for trials to select the ones that would be the core of the team. Also it was resolved that they schedule to begin to attend soccerex  seminars and conventions to meet with the who is who in the football word and business so as to get accustomed with standard practices in the business and network with the right people to move the team forward. The global edition for that year was to hold in south Africa in about 3 months from the time. Soccerex is a networking platform where football greats, including football club owners, kit designers and suppliers, ex footballers, administrators and the who is who in the global football family meet  to discuss important issues on moving football forward globally. It was also a networking platform to help football business meet football business. Soccerex brings about a perfect opportunity to do business with the leaders of the industry from all around the world. At soccerex events, you are always surrounded with footballs finest. Even though, these young men didn’t have the financial muscle to bring this vision to pass, “ Vision was still going to burden action”. So they set sail employing one Maxwell…. Now, Maxwell was someone who knew the football terrain in Nigeria so well and could influence a lot of people and events positively to the favour of the football club. Aside from being a FIFA licenced agent, a qualification which would come in handy for the club, he also understood football politics quite well. He was popularly referred to as “ the last joker” because of his level of his influence in football politics. Few days later, Maxwell was contacted. On this day, as if destined, Chief adegboye onigbinde, a renowned FIFA and CAF instructor walked into toyosi’s office for a banking transaction having been directed by a friend. He did not know Toyosi. As he stepped into the place, we rose to salute him and used that opportunity to tell him that we were looking at setting up a football club. He gave us his nod and said we could contact him on technical input anytime we so wished. A meeting was rescheduled for the 22nd of October, a few day s away. At the meeting, the appointment of Maxwell was formalized and a name was given to the club. The name given was to reflect the vision of the club viz a viz its affiliations, after a long dawn discussion, some names came up prominent. These include: adonai football club. Global football club adonai, football du adonai etc. Maxwell came up with FC ADONAI which was unanimously agreed upon and adopted.

Why FC Adonai FC Adonai was agreed upon because, it is apt, concise having affiliation with its parents body name, Adonai Auto mart international ltd. And because it would easily stick to the memory of fans. Also because it does. Maxwell thus became the first manager of the club and within a few days had organized a camp at Bembo games village ( a popular games camp in the earth of Ibadan) Inviting over a hundred players for a two week trial. He also invited to work with him, Friday Christopher who was an ex super eagle, seye Adenekan, an ex 3sc player, salami babatunde as his coaches and backroom staff. It became an instant big hit because of the caliber of the coaching crew and the quality of players in camp. Several big clubs started calling for matches with FC adonai, amongst are Adepoju babes ( owned by former super eagle mutiu adepoju), and 3SC. Twice they defeated Adepoju babes 1:0 and 2:1 and defeated 3SC once by 3:2 while 3SC won once 1:0. FCAdonai played a scoreless draw with Ambassadors ( a club of ex footballers in Ibadan) and defeated them twice 2:0 and 1:0. This string of brilliant results prompted the management of the club to decide to register them to play either pro 1 or amateur 1 league and also to play the state FA cup as an arch rival to 3SC. On the 16th of November of 2008, a meeting was held between FC Adonai, and a shaki based clubside to transfer their amateur 1 slot to FCA with the secretary of the state football association in attendance. Far reaching decisions where arrived at but FC Adonai was not going to participate in the league, at least not that season because of a crisis that rocked the club to its very root. December of 2008 say some purported agents of the kuwaitti sports minister invade the camp. And promising to take the team overseas for trials in Kuwait. Agreements where reached and documents where signed with lawyers of both parties as witnesses. The spirits of the players where heightened and they also preffered the trial to playing the local league. Everything went into preparing them for the trip. The players themselves trained very hard while all arrangements where supposedly being made by the gents. This whole thing last till may 2009. On the 6th of may 2009, two days after the players where to have left, the agents came to inform the management that the trip had been foiled by the Kuwaiti minister after huge sums of money had been expended both on the players and the trip. This left the management and the club bankrupt and in huge debts running into several millions.

The result of this was no mean crisis in the fold of the football club leading t the disbandment of the club and suspension of all activities. The crisis dealt a hard blow on everyone. Many of the board member resigned leaving the Visioner to bear the brunt. Every effort to salvage the situation failed. This whole episode lingered till the end of 2009 2010 and beyond

HISTORY OF THE CREST

INCEPTION From the birth of FC Adonai, it had its crest. At the time, it was referred to as ‘logo’ and it went on all of FCA’s, including documents and was also proudly worn by the players on their shirts. It was a means of identification, source of pride and an emblem of some sort. It was not considered a thing of fashion hence its simplicity.It consisted of a cross with a ball at the base of it. A ball with black and white patches a pair of boots on opposite sides of the ball with FC adonai written in opposite directions.

FIRST CREST Fig1

There was later an adition of ‘FC Adonai’ outside of the logo as seen below. This was necessary because it was a bit difficult to see the ‘fc adonai’ on the logo at least from a distance.

2009-2010

Fig 2

As the Club began to grow, afew people started to see the need to include colours. This was primarily to show the clubs colours and also to imprint this in the minds of people. People in the mangemnet began to sugest colours and a few months after, the following was arrived at.

THIRD CREST

A red cross to tipify service to humanity, the FC adonai in sky blue which is the main colour of the club a ball with red and white patches as opposed to the black and white and the FC Adonai in sky blue. And a pair of black boots. This officially announced the FC Adonai colours as RED, SKY BLUE AND BLACK.

PRESENT CREST

PRESENT CREST WITH MINOR ADJUSTMENT

Fg3

This crest was in use for a few years until a major crises rocked the very existence of the club an on bouncing back, the new management of the club decided to give it a new crest with a new meaning capturing the vision of the founder, Adedotun and the essence of its creation. Also, as a way of forgetting the past and forging into the future for the club and its management. it was also to make a distinction between what was and what the club would be even to generations yet unborn.

In the wake of 2011, Adedotun, with some of the new management team got together and with the help of a graphic artist, Biodun, a new crest was born. This represents the crest that the club wears to date and whether there would be a change or alteration to this new crest remains an answer with destiny. It’s basically a U shape design with a ball embedded at the center of the globe at the center of it. Around the ball are two strips, one of red and the other of sky blue with six dots on each side of the strip which represents the FC Adonai colors. On the red side are the blue dots and on the blue side are the red dots. At the top of the crest is the name FC Adonai embedded in the midst of stars. At the base of the FC Adonai is the web site and an the base of the logo is the year of birth of FC Adonai, 2008 to show that it is still the same club but now under a new management.. Thus the crest describes a club that would produce stars that would be known and seen throughout the globe

Minor adjustments have since been made to the crest but they have been purely aesthetics with no meaningful addition or subtraction. These include the embossing of the contents of the emblems