Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau, the President of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), and Club Owners have called for a better-packaged and more fruitful Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL).
This is contained in a statement issued by Mr Ademola Olajire, the NFF Director of Communications in Abuja.
They made the call at a meeting in Abuja
”There is urgent need to institute a better-packaged, fulfilling and more fruitful NPFL that will germinate a more beneficial football economy for all stakeholders,” Gusau said earlier.
The meeting had in attendance 13 the club owners, with former Nigeria Football supremo Ibrahim Galadima representing Kano Pillars and Nasarawa United boss, Isaac Danladi on seat as Chairman of the club owners.
Others are Paul Bassey (Akwa United FC); Adamu Mohammed (Niger Tornadoes FC); Coach “Amehi Dickson (Dakkada FC); Promise Nwachukwu (Heartland FC) and Ferdinand Emeka (Rangers Int’l FC).
Others are Tunde Ogunja (Sunshine Stars); Tunde Olaniyan (Shooting Stars FC); Abubakar Abubakar (Gombe United FC); Dominic Iorfa (Lobi Stars FC); Jude Anyadufu (Enyimba FC) and Abdulsamad Badama (Katsina United FC).
Representatives of Rivers United, Kwara United, Plateau United and Wikki Tourists were absent with apologies,.
At the end of the meeting, club owners unanimously pledged total support to the board on any steps it will take to ensure that the NPFL lives up to the name of a professional league in every sense of the word.
Participants maintained that the NPFL had suffered serious problems in the past six years and identified lack of sponsorship, no TV Broadcast, Poor Officiating, Insufficient Funding, Lack of Match Integrity, Poor remuneration of match officials and huge indebtedness as major factors mitigating a robust league.
Other areas they said include; matches won on the basis of Highest Bidder, Poor Infrastructure, Incompetent Administrators, No prize money for winners and/or failure to honour same.
They urged the NFF president and his board to critically look into the aforementioned areas of concern and restructure the NPFL in line with international best practices.
They also called on the NFF president to set up a committee of football experts to look into the former League Management Committee (LMC) and the current Interim Management Committee (IMC).
Participants at the meeting agreed to come up with a functional governance structure to drive the NPFL for the good and development of football in Nigeria and for the benefit of all major football stakeholders.
The club owners appealed to the NFF president to inaugurate the present IMC as appointed by the Federal Government through the Minister for Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare but with a short tenure,” Olajire said. (NAN)
