Well Run League Will Shoot Nigerian Football Back To International Reckoning - Elegbeleye

Well Run League Will Shoot Nigerian Football Back To International Reckoning - Elegbeleye

Taofeek Lawal, Abuja

The chairman of the Interim Management Committee of the Nigeria Professional Football League, Honourable Gbenga Elegbeleye, has said Nigerian football will take back its pride of place in international football only when the league is run properly as was obtained in the 1970s and 80s, BSNSports.com.ng reports.

Elegbeleye stated this at the presentation of N100 million cheque to the winners of the recently concluded Dozy Mmobuosi Super Cup Tournament, Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) of Ibadan in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to the former federal legislator, Nigeria can go all the way to the World Cup semi-final like Morocco if the domestic league is properly run, players are well motivated and the right things are put in place. 

"We need to go back to the days when the national team was dominated by players from the domestic league. We have done it before when Nigeria won the 1980 Nations Cup with almost 80 or 90 per cent of our domestic footballers."

He said the IMC is working to make the domestic league buoyant and lucrative where clubs can have more money and players paid handsomely for their efforts. He added that it should be the duty of the league body to pay referee indemnities and not the clubs to promote fair officiating. 

"We have other things that we are doing to make the league more financially buoyant and financially lucrative so that the clubs can have more money. But you have to compete first and fight for the money and that will bring competition. We want a league where the least-paid player in the league will be earning nothing less than N1 million. We want to bring commercial value to our league and we intend to start the league very soon. 

"We want a league where the first, second and third-placed teams will get prize money at the end of the season. The clubs will be mobilised with financial support to run their activities and the referees paid when due. We have made arrangements not to owe any referee. The club will not be in charge of referee indemnities because we have sourced their (referees) money for the season. It shouldn't be clubs that should pay the referees, the system should generate the money."

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the IMC, Davidson Owumi, in his remarks, called for support from every stakeholder to take Nigerian football to the desired height. He said what the IMC has done was to encourage corporate organisations to support the Nigerian domestic league which he said is the foundation of the country's football. 

"We are trying to encourage the corporate world to see what it takes to encourage our domestic football which is the foundation of our football. Once it's well articulated then we don't have a problem in the international scene.

"The essence of this press conference is to do an official presentation to the winners of the Dozy Mmobuosi Super Cup which took place in Lagos recently. Four traditional clubs with continental legacies were picked by the sponsors for the maiden edition of the competition. The reason it was allowed is that we take their conditions for this season but beginning from next season, the first eight teams in the league are going to participate in the competition which they (the organisers) agreed and on that condition we allowed the competition to take place. 

"It was like a fairytale when someone comes up in Nigeria today giving the backdrop of where we are coming from in our domestic football to say that our of four teams playing four games and you have a hundred million at stake. It was like a fairytale but we are very convinced that the environment of Nigerian football can still guarantee corporate partnership and this is barely two months of IMC under the leadership of Honourable Gbenga Elegbeleye and things are beginning to happen."

Receiving the N100 million cheque, the chairman, of 3SC, Honourable Babatunde Olaniyan thanked the organisers of the Super Cup and IMC for organising the competition saying the club will make judicious use of the money.