OPINION: Sports Minister, NFF Must Enforce Private Ownership Participation In All Government Owned NPFL Clubs

OPINION: Sports Minister, NFF Must Enforce Private Ownership Participation In All Government Owned NPFL Clubs 

Harrison Jalla, Chairman PFAN Task Force

The flagship of Nigeria's domestic football the NPFL clubs must be run professionally if Nigeria football must make any meaningful progress from the 2023 football season. 

The Hon. Elegbeleye-led Interim Management Committee (IMC) must be supported by all stakeholders to achieve the desired standard in the following areas.

Enforcing strict compliance with the club licencing process, monitoring, evaluating and ensuring character, competence and capacity in the managerial structure of all the clubs.

Thirdly, there should be no need to accommodate any club that has no potential to be viable in an elite league. 

If at the end of a strict compliance exercise we have only six (6) clubs that sail through, then Nigeria Football can boast of a real Professional league. The IMC must avoid endless meetings with the current 20 club owners whose unprofessional managers are the biggest problem in Nigeria Football.

These club managers lack character, competence and capacity to run professional clubs, they still glory in the sacked League Management Company (LMC) era of stomach infrastructure.

They don't care what happens to the clubs and the welfare of players so long as their interest is taken care of. Their body language, foot-dragging and posturing and tactical delay of 2022/2023 are to bully the IMC on what will go into their pockets from the sponsorship the IMC has secured for NPFL.

This has been their stock in trade that was why several millions of US Dollars and Billions of Naira in sponsorship money were diverted in the inglorious LMC era which the club owners themselves aided and abetted. 

The IMC has the mandate to restructure and set up an enduring structure for the flagship of Nigeria Domestic Football, it's a date with History and Nigerians will not forgive (God forbid) if they fail. 

It's like the last chance to catch up with the world. The IMC must set up a very high standard, those who cannot chip in should chip out, enough of the nonsense in a potentially huge industry that is dying by instalment.

Football in Nigeria was ahead of the music industry in the1990s but you cannot compare the music industry in Nigeria today that has no subvention from the Federal government and Nigeria Football Federation, yet Nigeria Football administrators are not ashamed of themselves, as their biggest achievement is to snap pictures with FIFA President and put it in the social media.

This writer cannot remember seeing any pictures of the Morroco FA President with Infantino yet they played in the semi-finals of the World Cup and have invested their FIFA grants massively on infrastructure.  

The club owners themselves made an open confession that the NPFL matches under the watch of the sacked LMC were always for the highest bidder. 

The Hon Elegbeleye-led IMC in a few months has demonstrated that with integrity all hope is not lost for Nigeria Football from the pre-season sponsorship to lining up 3 major sponsors ready for the 2022/2023 Football season.

Let me state here that the future of Nigeria's Domestic Football today lies in hands of the IMC as a forerunner to the promised land. The current club managers of the government-owned 20-club structure cannot drive the process to viable league clubs which is very critical to Nigeria's football overall development, this is a fact that must not be smoothened over by the IMC. 

There are too many clubs and their managers that are not fit to be in the elite division of the NPFL. It's laughable that with all the commercial potential available to modern-day professional football clubs, Nigeria club managers are still waiting for subvention from the state government. 

We do not need all the 20 clubs in the current structure to rebuild domestic football we only need the required standard to dominate African club football. We have the talents and Economic potential to take our place in Africa and world Football.