A thousand and one reasons to keep criticising NPFL clubs – Daily Trust

As the local saying goes, when you are still suffering from a deadly illness, you don’t stop taking your medication. You only stop after the sickness is gone. In so many ways, the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) clubs have refused to change for the better. Therefore, those of us who want real, positive change in the domestic league will continue to criticise and offer useful suggestions—even at the risk of being misunderstood.

At the moment, most NPFL clubs are preparing their squads for the new season and we are witnessing the exact same unprofessional behaviour that characterizes their yearly recruitment. The clubs continue to run in circles, demonstrating a little desire to make genuine progress or evolve.

Since the end of the 2026 season, hardly a day has passed without at least one of the 20 clubs announcing the arrival of four or five new players. This is hardly surprising given that most of these teams rarely build squads for a three-to-five-year cycle. Signing 10 to 15 players in a single transfer window remains the standard practice, resulting in high player turnover and short-term contracts—a stark contrast to top European leagues. This constant overhaul forces near-strangers to line up together at the start of every season.

Beyond the high turnover, most clubs prefer to shuffle the same pool of experienced top-flight players back and forth rather than building structures to unearth emerging talents from lower divisions. Consequently, it is common to see a player represent Kano Pillars one season, move to Bendel Insurance the next and line up for Enugu Rangers the year after that.

For instance, last season’s joint top-scorer, Jonathan Mairiga, left relegated Wikki Tourists to join Bendel Insurance. Zayyad Musa, El-Kanemi Warriors’ most influential player fresh off leading them to a historic Federation Cup triumph, moved to Kano Pillars. Abdulraheem Shola, the highly rated attacking midfielder, departed Kwara United for Kano Pillars on a two-year deal. Meanwhile, CHAN Super Eagles star, Hadi Haruna left Remo Stars for newly promoted Sporting Lagos. These players move so rapidly that tracking their movements becomes almost impossible; they are truly nomadic.

It is equally disheartening that player transfers in the NPFL are rarely cash-on-the-table transactions. Because players are offered flimsy contracts, most internal transfers occur as free transfers upon contract expiration or through mutual termination.

This reveals that most clubs are yet to take revenue generation through player sales seriously. Ever since sign-on fees were abolished in the NPFL, players move with their clearance papers in hand. They join clubs for free, hand over their papers and walk away for free when their deals end. Thus, El-Kanemi Warriors may not make a dime from Zayyad’s transfer to Pillars if he simply moved as a free agent.

To further illustrate this point, NPFL clubs rarely announce transfer fees. While some might argue that internal sign-on fees remain unintegrated, this lack of transparency extends to foreign transfers as well. When clubs sell their best players overseas, financial details are virtually non-existent; we only hear that a player has moved abroad. These players arrive for free and leave without generating financial compensation for their clubs.

If you ask Wikki Tourists how much Bendel Insurance paid for Mairiga, they will have nothing to show. The only return on their investment after paying his salary all season was his 14 goal contributions. It is possible that there was zero financial gain upon his departure; and after his stint with Insurance, he will likely leave the “Benin Arsenals” on another free transfer. It is simply another season of cashless transfers in the NPFL.

Moreover, as clubs navigate the transfer window, a familiar bottleneck persists. Given that over 80 per cent of NPFL clubs are state-funded, recruitment budgets rely entirely on government allocations, heavily restricting operational flexibility in the transfer market.

Clubs managed under state governors with little interest in sports often receive funds late, forcing them to scramble for leftovers. This delayed funding prevents teams from scouting for top talents to build well-balanced squads, leaving them to settle for average players because their primary targets are no longer available.

However, a glimmer of hope is emerging as privately owned clubs begin to challenge traditional heavyweights. While traditional teams remain committed to recycling veterans, a modern, corporate-backed model is stepping up as a direct challenge to the status quo. New-generation clubs like Ikorodu City, Sporting Lagos, Inter Lagos and Kun-Khalifat FC are focusing heavily on youth development and grassroots pathways.

What these private clubs are doing deserves commendation: they recruit raw teenage talents into their academies, integrate them early into the first team and sell them directly to European or North African markets for profit. Unlike government-owned entities, they view football as a business and refrain from holding onto players for too long in the local league.

While these modern clubs deserve praise for gradually shifting the league from “analogue” to “digital,” traditional clubs must adapt quickly to these changing trends. Football is a lucrative industry, and running clubs like amateur outfits does a major disservice to those investing time, energy and resources into the league.

To minimise the legitimate criticisms surrounding the NPFL, league authorities must ensure that clubs operate as structured business ventures. Government ownership should not prevent an entity from generating profit. To achieve this, clubs must be required to offer long-term contracts.

This endless cycle of player movement every season damages the reputation of the league, making it look less like a top professional competition and more like an amateur circuit.

Restoring sign-on fees should be mandatory, and clubs unable to meet these financial obligations should be relegated to lower divisions.

Some clubs are already complaining that a proposed monthly salary floor of N2 million is too high. These are precisely the types of attitudes holding the league back. Only when players receive structured sign-on fees and competitive wages will the NPFL become genuinely professional. Until then, it remains little more than a glorified amateur league – though recent directives from the National Sports Commission (NSC) – if properly implemented, could finally turn the tide.