Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Hon. Sunday Dare has stated that the domestic league, Nigeria Professional Football League, NPFL, is the fulcrum that would give vitality to Nigerian football, and says the league’s stakeholders must do the needful to make it attractive.
In a chat in Abuja, the minister made reference to the working model of a robust league as a critical component of football vitality in any country, but is nonexistent in the NPFL.
Sunday Dare
Dare emphasized the need for enforcing club licensing, governance and welfare of players as demands needed for the growth of NPFL.
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“We have good laws governing the league but we need to be firm on their enforcement. Look at what Samuel Eto’o is doing at Cameroon. We have these laws, we need to enforce them,” the sports minister said.
“If we must take bank guarantees to ensure players payment are secured, then we should do that. We know that State Governments are the owners of these clubs, but there must be ways out of these.”
Dare added: “In my speech at the NFF AGM in 2019, I mentioned that there is no league without a proper calendar. This is needed to gain the trust of investors, consistency is key, taking a cue from the EPL and others. Organizations also have budget cycles and this would help them plan.”
Dare said that before the start of the next NPFL season, there would be a roundtable with all League stakeholders to find ways around issues holding down the league, through engagements and implementation of tough decisions to help the league grow.
4 Comments
In as much as I feel Oga Dare has done our football and sports some irreparable harm, if he can manage to follow through with the actions of this speech then he would have done a lot, in one single stroke, to redeem himself some.
The haphazard management of our league is the bane of our football development. Quite frankly, we need to have a league where teams are run privately and not financed by state governments which often use them as a political tool. These teams should also be made to have a fledgling youth setup as a requirement for maintenance of league status in addition to fifa standard pitches, stadia and adequate security for all and sundry on matchdays.
Until we get these things, we are not serious about moving our football into the current century
What harm has he done. Because he is asking for indigenous coaches and players to be part of the national team. When did that become a harmful decision. You know very well the problems facing our league is proper structure and good administrators. Not those who just take the position to grow there belly. If i were to be the minister, a lot of clubs with no proper structure should be shut down. But yet interference will kick in. The clubs need to find ways to be independent and free from the government
To answer your question, let me list a couple of harmful things
1. Distracting the team prior to the S Leone match by going out there and practicing with them just for photo ops
2. Needlessly interfering with the NFF and putting pressure on Pinnick to sack Gernot Rohr at the worst possible moment right before a tournament and with WC playoff looming
3. The decision to pull our basketball teams from all competitions that our gallant players had fought so hard to qualify for and potentially putting us in a position where it will take a while to recover from
I can name more but since you asked, I gave you these. Look I’m all for the Nigerian content but you cant force homebased players unto the Super Eagles. The plain truth, which is clear for all to see, is that they dont measure up. Now if these points he has made are implemented, perhaps we’ll start to see the efforts bear fruit and then we can start asking the questions of invitation of home based players.
As it stands, our league is shambolic, our clubs perform poorly on the continent and the CHAN Eagles dont do much better either. So please forgive me if I dismiss these calls for homebased players as merely self serving statements to either appeal to peoples fragile mindset, his oga at the top, or for pecuniary monetary gains from sales of these players
Well said, @Lord Amo