NPL And League Sponsorship

About a forthnight ago, two contradicting statements from the Nigeria Premier League, NPL, authorities concerning the sponsorship rights of the Premier League reflected the fact that something has gone terribly wrong with the League.

The Nigeria Football Association, NFA had released a statement signed by Tunji Babalola, Acting Secretary of NPL stating that the league body was re-opening the bid for its title sponsorship after a review of the bidding process leading to the initial award of the rights.

Almost immediately, the NPL board responded with a statement of their own, chiding the Secretary and disowning his statement.

The NPL had on December 16, 2010 announced multi-national telecommunications giant, MTN Nigeria Limited, represented by Total Pomotions Nigeria Limited, winner of the title sponsorship right.

However, MTN’s rival in the bidding and equally a telecom giant, Globacom Nigeria Limited, the league’s sponsor between 2006 and 2010, alleged that the bid did not follow due process and subsequently took the matter to court but later withdrew the case.

Also, the NFA had earlier stated its unhappiness with the NPL’s choice of MTN because, according to them, the NFA was not ‘carried along’ in the award process.

The Tide is worried that a simple matter of choosing a title sponsor for Nigeria’s Premier League is threatening to tear Nigeria football family apart.

It is embarrassing to say the least, that a league, which was recently tagged the best in Africa cannot organise itself and effectively tap its huge potentials through sponsorships.

Indeed, football all over the world has grown beyond mere entertainment to very big brands that can create employment, unity and source of revenue.

Football in Nigeria has grown to become a passionate enterprise that can stand on its own, sustain itself and those that invest on it, as such, the game  should not be allowed to go awry.

We say so because the game is now at a stage where it can be tapped economically as a national enterprise apart from serving as a  unifying factor in the country, rallying the diverse people of the nation together at every given opportunity.

It has also become a means of laundering the country’s image abroad and putting us on the world map.

The immense potentials of the game can only be harnessed when the local league is effectively branded and marketed to provide the plank for reaching the heights expected of a country like Nigeria, endowed with tremendous manpower and talent.

That is why we totally condemn the Nigeria Premier League authorities, Nigeria Football Association and the National Sports Commission, NSC for the way and manner the sponsorship of the Premier League has been handled.

Reports of external pressure and behind the scene manoeuvrings that led to the sponsorship impasse have been very loud.

If not, we are at a loss on why an NPL congress in its penultimate meeting not only commended the NPL board on the process leading to the award of the rights and whole  heartedly approved the decision, only for the same congress in an extra-ordinary meeting on Wednesday January 26 to make a U-turn and nullify the deal.

Contrastingly, the major stakeholders in the league, club owners seemed happy with the deal.

Chairman of Club Owners in the Nigeria Premier League, David Suleiman was quoted as reacting thus to the award of the sponsorship rights to MTN, “we want to commend the board of NPL and the Chairman, Davidson Owuni for the effort to get the Premier League on the right track. We are all happy in the club owners forum. This is a good thing for us because we have really suffered when there was no money for the clubs last season.

“The coming of MTN will greatly improve the game in the country, ….. we are happy, and the fact that the premier league was able to attract a sponsor like MTN shows there are great potentials in the Nigeria Premier League”.

We, thus believe that the current imbroglio may have stemmed from interests outside the NPL, which is certainly not the best for the game in Nigeria.

Without prejudice to the status of NFA and NPL, we believe that the former should concentrate on playing a supervisory role and leave the actual running of the league to NPL, as is obtainable in other developed leagues.

Just as it is in a democracy, NPL should be allowed to make its mistakes, learn from them and emerge stronger in the interest of the league.

We, therefore call on all stakeholders in Nigerian football, especially, the Premier League, to eschew selfish interests in handling decisions concerning the future and well being of the league.

Encouraging crisis in the league will only mortgage the country’s great potentials and the chances of freeing the league from among others, the strangulating effect the European leagues have on an average Nigerian fan.

The time to start a new beginning is now, and by ensuring that justice, fairness, equity and the interest of the game remain  paramount in decisions and policies affecting football and the league.