Nigeria Football Federation president Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau has met with officials running Nigeria Professional Football League clubs in a bid to return the country’s top flight to its glory days.
Gusau, who was elected into office on September 30 to succeed Amaju Pinnick, had a meeting in Abuja yesterday with 13 members of the Club Owners Association.
The main agenda was ‘the urgent need to institute a better-packaged, fulfilling and more fruitful Nigeria Professional Football League that will germinate a more beneficial football economy for all stakeholders’, according to the NFF.
Among the ‘club owners’ in attendance were former NFF boss Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima, now of Kano Pillars, veteran journalist and administrator Paul Bassey of Akwa United, former star striker Dominic Iorfa of Lobi Stars, and Isaac Danladi of Nasarawa United, who is the Chairman of the group.
The club managers admitted that the NPFL has gone through tough times in the last six years, including lack of sponsorship, no television broadcast, poor officiating, insufficient funding, poor remuneration of match officials and huge indebtedness in this area.
They also identified poor infrastructure, incompetent administrators and no prize money for winners as some of the other problems holding back the league.
They charged the NFF president and his board to critically look into the areas of concern and restructure the NPFL in line with international best practices.
They also called on Gusau to set up a small committee of football experts to look into the former League Management Company and the current Interim Management Committee, and come up with a functional governance structure to drive the NPFL for the development of football in Nigeria and for the benefit of all major football stakeholders.
They also appealed to the NFF president to inaugurate the present IMC as appointed by the Federal Government through the sports minister Sunday Dare but with a short tenure.
