Thirty Six Years After, How Professional Is Nigerian Football League? – Independent Newspaper Nigeria

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The Nigerian topflight, known as the Nigerian Premier Football League (NPFL), marked 36 years of purported professionalism on May 12 this year.

While it may be admitted that the Nigerian league is one of the toughest leagues to play, at least in Africa, the various name changes have reflected the desire of the organisers to make it better but to what extent the league has been able to reflect true professionalism is a matter of conjecture.

Among several other factors, a truly professional football league is defined by a structured ecosystem that ensures consistency, financial sustainability and high standards both on and off the pitch, moving far beyond simply paying players.

Such leagues are characterised by robust governance, quality infrastructure and comprehensive player development systems through well defined and legally-backed licensing of the players which protects them from undue intimidations, preserving their rights to earn living and placing the onus on the various clubs to ensure that their welfare is taking care off.

In a professional environment, clubs are organised as independent businesses and adhere to strict licensing systems that define standards for operations, financial stability and management. Consequently, players and staff are employed through formal contracts, receiving regular remuneration for their services, rather than part-time or amateur arrangements.

Also, professional leagues mandate quality infrastructure such as proper stadiums, training facilities and established medical care. Clubs operating in a professional environment are mandated to run academy programs to train and develop young talent.

While formats may vary, true professional leagues also ensure a consistent and high-quality competition structure, with merit-based systems like promotion/relegation that provide drama and competitive balance.

Most importantly, professional leagues have access to significant economic resources, often driven by TV rights, sponsorships and high fan engagement.

In the thirty six years that the Nigerian topflight adopted ‘professional approach, virtually everything listed above is still non-existent. The NPFL is still grappling with many of the same structural problems critics warned about decades before the professional era began.

Recall that former football administrator, Derby Allen, warned that most clubs in Nigeria lacked suitable stadiums and sustainable revenue streams to operate professionally.

Decades later, many NPFL clubs are still heavily dependent on state government funding, while issues such as poor infrastructure, irregular player welfare, low commercial returns and weak marketing continue to limit the league’s growth.
Also, as of a couple of years back, the league still heavily struggled with a “win at all costs” mentality, player welfare issues (unpaid salaries) and low visibility, resulting in a reliance on government funding.

In recent years, players have had to grapple with unpaid entitlements, leading to their dumping Nigeria for other countries both within and outside the continent.

A league player who craved anonymity told our correspondent recently that it would be hard for young and promising talents to remain in NPFL for the mere fact that not only that players are not paid well, but a whole lot of them are owed.

“If you check, you will see that the league is populated by players who are gradually passing their prime,” he told our correspondent.

“It is because younger talents want to leave to where they will make the money. Football is not a long term work and the earlier any player makes money, the better.

“NPFL is good but we have the challenge of poor payment and even at that, a lot of clubs owe their players.”

He exonerated the league board but placed the whole blame on what he called age-long structural imbalance.

“There is nothing that a club which is owned by the government can do because it may not be making money,” he said.

“The structure of the league spoilt a long time ago and there is nothing for now that can help the situation.

“If we say we are running a professional league, we should make it truly professional and allow it to run independent of the government,” said the player who plays for one of the clubs in the South East.

“Look at a team like Enyimba battling to escape relegation; where the structures are there, Enyimba should be competing with clubs in North Africa,” he continued.

“Enyimba were making waves then because a governor that was ready to support them was there; the club should be independent of the state government,” he concluded.

Brown Ideye, former international and the recent Enyimba of Aba forward, slammed the league as very poor in standard.

“The system is getting worse. My time at Enyimba has been wonderful, but there are a lot of things in the league that need to improve,” he said,as per 54FootballX.

“Nigerian clubs not ready for continental football”

Ideye pointed out that Nigerian clubs struggle in continental tournaments due to a lack of proper preparation and poor infrastructure.

“In terms of travelling, it’s bad; in terms of feeding, it’s bad; in terms of the hotel and helping the players to relax, it’s all bad,” he lamented.

He further stressed that these problems need to be addressed before Nigerian clubs can compete successfully at the international level.

“Nigerians and the clubs are not ready for continental football. I feel we should put our house together before we can go play continental football instead of going there to disgrace ourselves,” he added.

As a consequence, today Nigeria has seeming faded away into oblivion in both the CAF Champions League and the CAF Confederations Cup as clubs from the country have continued to epitomise the sorry state of the league by hardly qualifying for the group stages of the two competitions.

As part of the measures towards halting the trend, Joseph DOSU, an NPFL veteran and former Super Eagles goalkeeper, called for better welfare for the league players.

“It’s time we address player and coach welfare in the NPFL,” Dosu wrote on his social media account.

“We’ve seen coaches earning as little as ₦100,000 and ₦200,000 per month, yet we expect the league to grow. Mr Elegbeleye, we can and must do better.”

He noted that poor remuneration contributes significantly to the constant movement of players and coaches between clubs, while also encouraging talented footballers to seek opportunities abroad at the earliest opportunity.

According to him, sustainable development in the league can only be achieved if administrators prioritise proper salary structures and welfare incentives.

“Low salaries for coaches and players lead to high turnover, low motivation, and make it hard to attract and keep talent,” he added.

The former goalkeeper further stressed that improving welfare would ultimately enhance the quality of football in the league, increase competitiveness and strengthen the NPFL brand internationally.

Ideye said efforts should be made to prioritise the welfare of players and officials as the only way the league could be rescued. He noted that the playing staff and the technical department must be encouraged through adequate payment for their efforts, noting that only through that, that the NPFL can start to regain glory.

A club official who also craved anonymity challenged the NPFL Board to roll up their sleeves and look at the ways to improve the fortunes of the league.

“I have been in this business of club football for a long time and can tell you that it has nothing to do with the present managers of the league now but they still have a lot of work to do,” he said.

“Something is fundamentally wrong with our approach to football. How can football managers regularly go cap in hand to state governments for money? It is because there are wrong structures at the clubs and it has continued to hinder their performances.

“The only way is to inject money into the league and I also want to challenge those managing our clubs to think out of the box. Same goes to the NPFL board. It is not enough to just dole out money to winners at the end of the season.

“They should look at ways to also make sure that clubs are solvent and be able to at least stand on their own.

“Unfortunately, most state governments are not interested in sports and when you have such, the football will suffer most,” he said.

Stanley Nwabali, former Enyimba and Chippa United of South Africa goalkeeper, blamed the rot in the league and in the entire West African leagues on poor pay to players.

Nwabali, who rose to prominence with Nigeria’s national team, also criticised the poor quality of stadiums and weak organisational frameworks across West Africa, contrasting them with the top-tier facilities and superior management commonly found in the South African and Moroccan leagues.

“In West Africa, our leagues are not as good. We want to go to Europe, we want to come to South Africa, we want to go to Morocco,” Nwabali said.

He added that pay is only decent at a certain level within a club, but not sustainable across the board.

“If your league is nice, you’re getting paid, you’re getting sponsors, what are you leaving for? He asked.

He called for improved funding of the NPFL, saying it is only through that, that players would be willing to stay for a long time in the league.

“There should be sustained funding of the league so that players will be paid adequately,” he said.

“Look at South Africa and North Africa; their players are not in a hurry to leave for Europe because they are finely taking care off.

“This is what I expect to happen in Nigeria and indeed the entire West Africa for players to be assured of they payments,” he said.

Like enumerated earlier, when compared to the South African league, the NPFL is perceived as below-par in so many aspects. Issues such as player remuneration challenges, fan attitude, playing environment, organisation, poor coaching and refereeing contribute to the failure of the league to live up to its potential.

“All these things make it hard for fans to forge a connection with the local teams and get sponsorship,” according to the chairman of a north-west top tier club.

Although some football players are paid monthly allowances as much as N800,000, the payment, like noted earlier, does not come as promptly as expected. Most clubs tend to owe players for long periods of time.

In 2011, for example, Kaduna United players were not paid for nine months despite having a record-breaking goalscorer like Jude Aneke in their team at the time and that development led the players to occupy the government house.

Delayed remuneration is not the only problem, allegations of referees getting bribed to fix matches are also rampant, although investigation has shown reduction or almost non-existent of the menace. Some referees are even believed to collect money from both sides.