New Telegraph

NFF must save football as domestic league kicks-off

The poor administration and standard of the domestic league has been a subject of discussion in Nigeria. We believe the major bane is the calendar imbalance in which the league season has no standard take-off and end period. In the past six months, the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) has been on break and yet to resume.

The Interim Management Committee (IMC) set up by the Ministry of Sports to oversee the league has given January 8 as the kick-off date of a proposed abridged league but the club owners are asking for a full season while the referees’ body are also demanding guarantees that their indemnities will not be a problem. No doubt, a full season is not possible because it also means the calendar will not be the same with the rest of Africa and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) deadline for registration of clubs for its competitions will be missed again. We commend the steps taken so far by the IMC led by Hon Gbenga Elegbeleye.

First, there was a draw for the league and then the body has secured sponsors for the payment of referees which will be done directly by the sponsors. It was also interesting that the fixtures were done with May as the end period of the season.

This is a good development and the decisions must be carried out so that the calendar synchronises with that of CAF and other top countries all over the world. We sincerely hope this template can be executed and retained not only this season but in the years ahead when a full regular season is expected to be staged.

There was also a big issue on hooliganism and the IMC has threatened to deduct three points straight from erring teams rather than invoke suspended ban or fine teams N500, 000. “We are serious about this because it is important to make our stadiums safe so that more fans can be at the stadiums to see the games,” Elegbeleye said.

We are aware that Morocco took part in the World Cup and the domestic football league resumed on December 28 just as the season is back in many other parts of the continent as well as Europe. Nigeria did not feature at the World Cup and it is thus so sad that the league cannot be administered in an autopilot way as it is being done elsewhere. More importantly, the league is not on television, security is not top-notch, merchandising is not booming while spectators are yet to grace the stands as expected just as the welfare is still a big issue.

As the league starts this weekend, we insist that Nigeria deserves better than this and the earlier right things are done to move forward, the better especially with the impressive show of Morocco in Qatar, which is now clearly the yardstick for all nations across the African continent. Despite its huge popularity and followership in Nigeria, we make bold to say football in the year 2022 was a big disappointment almost at various points of evaluation.

On the international stage, the senior national men’s and women’s teams crumbled like a pack of cards. While the Super Eagles failed to progress beyond the second round stage in the Africa Nations Cup in Cameroon, the women also recorded the country’s poorest performance in history at the Africa Women’s Nations Cup in Morocco. Nigeria lost to South Africa, Morocco and Zambia in the same competition as the Falcons finished fourth without any medal.

It was the first time such happened to the team. No doubt, the ageing team needs a complete overhaul and thankfully, the country’s U-20 team were glorious at the FIFA Women’s U-20 World Cup and so the NFF should look in that direction in the rebuilding process. As if these disappointments were not enough, the Super Eagles failed to pick a ticket to the recently held Qatar 2022 World Cup.

The flagship domestic football competition, the FA Cup, is currently engulfed in crisis and sadly, no winner emerged in 2022 as the tournament was stopped in the quarter-final stage because the football authorities failed to meet the continental deadline for the event. No doubt, there was little to cheer in the outgoing year especially because the country’s representatives on the continent in the African club competitions also fumbled badly without entering the group stage in the CAF Champions League and the Confederation Cup. The only surviving team, Rivers United, dropped from the Champions League to make the group stage of the Confed Cup.

We charge the NFF to look into circumstances that led to the woeful results recorded last year. This should be done with a view to double efforts and get the technical department working better to bring back the winning streak in the national teams just as the entire secretariat officials should be alive to respective roles to avoid embarrassing the country administratively. Football development is at its lowest ebb as not much is being done at the grassroots and age grade levels in terms of talent hunt and transition of national junior players into senior cadre. Going forward, there should be a good template for this if we are to be competing with the likes of Morocco and other top nations who have concrete plans for the game at various levels.

Read Previous

2023 Elections: NSCIA urges Nigerians, Muslims to freely choose quality leaders

Read Next

Executive Order 3: Increasing poverty and hunger in Ebonyi

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *