The founders anticipated that players remuneration and welfare will be the priority of clubs and that the clubs will also invest in youth and infrastructure development.
However, 42 years after, these lofty expectations and dreams remain unfulfilled as the league became enmeshed in endless crises that has culminated into poor administration and dwindle fortunes.
Against this deplorable background, the professional football league in the country is lingering in crisis and maladministration. This unpalatable trend was however arrested recently with the intervention of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), with a directive from the Honourable Minister of sports and chairman National Sports Commission (NSC), Bolaji Abdullahi. He was the brain child of the reform process that gave birth to the nascent reforms in the administration of the league, through the instrumentality of the League Management Company (LMC).
The registration of the League Management Company (LMC) as a private company to manage the league was a master stroke which many are now hailing to reposition the country’s domestic football league and make it attractive to investors.
Having listened to the Honourable Nduka Irabor-led board of the League Management Committee (LMC), in a presentation on the $34 (N5.4billion) lucrative broadcast rights deal the company signed with the satellite broadcast company, SuperSports, Sports minster and chairman National Sports Commission, Bolaji Abdullahi, applauded the committee for turning around the fortunes of the Nigeria Professional Football League within its short period of existence.
“If you don’t understand where you were coming from you will probably not appreciate where you are. Today, I can say this loud and clear that this is the same league that less than a year ago was asking clubs to pay the indemnities of referees. This is the same league that less than one year ago, a company in this country said it is completely worthless. But this same league today we are talking of a deal of $34 million. So, I can’t thank the LMC and the NFF president who supported this reform process enough.
“Our own generation of the National Sports Commission and Nigeria Football Federation are not fighting, we are making money for Nigerian football,” he said.
The elated sports minister without any hesitation granted the Nduka Irabor led LMC tenure elongation to complete their task, stressing that the nation cannot afford go back to the dark era. The LMC chairman while explaining the television rights deal to the minister, tactically pleaded for more time to enable them laid a solid foundation so that their successors would find it easy to manage the league successfully. “We intend to remain very transparent and dedicated to what we are doing, we will accelerate the reform process in our football. The LMC belongs to the Nigerian people and the clubs and they are the ones to benefit from its dealings.
“We will wrap up this season by October this year, which is our mandate, may be after that we will have an overview of the league by accounting for our stewardship. Already, the NFF president has told us that a lot is still needed to be done, we also believe by our assessment that there is still a lot to do. We want to state here that we are not office seekers; we do not seek to perpetuate ourselves in office because we at the board are not looking for something to do. We have learnt from the past and we intend to set the pace properly giving the freedom of operations we have so that whoever comes in will have a guide on how to do it,” he stated.
Speaking exclusively to LEADERSHIP WEEKEND SPORTS recently in Abuja, Acting chairman of the club owners/managers association, Isaac Danladi, warned that the club owners would not hesitate to do otherwise if the Nduka Irabor led League Management Company fails to stay within their guidelines. “In principle if the LMC agrees to work the way we want them to, we will have no other choice than to support them.
“From what we can see, they have the ability to get more money for the league and if what they do is what we have in mind it means there won’t be problem. You heard chairman of the LMC said that they are the messengers of club owners and that they are not working alone.
“He also said that they are working in line with the yearnings and aspirations of NPFL clubs. That is the agreement we have and in as much as they are doing that, there won’t be problem among us, but if they do things without our consent, then, there will be disagreement. I want the LMC to remain the messenger of the club just as the LMC chairman has said.”
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