Few weeks after announcing a mouth-watering sponsorship deal with top-notch betting company, Bet9ja, a top official of the League Management Company (LMC) may have thrown spanners into the partnership arrangement ahead of the commencement of the 2021/22 NPFL football season.
The sponsorship deal may turn out to be a mirage after all as it was reliably gathered from an impeccable source.
The Tidesports reliably gathered that Bet9ja Chairman, Hon.Kunle Soname, who also the proprietor of Remo Stars, a new entrant into the NPFL was irked when a topshot in the LMC demanded for 50 percent payment into his private account.
The LMC official in question was not the one that brokered the deal between LMC and Bet9ja.
The action and effrontery of the LMC official infuriated Hon Soname to the extent of cancelling the ‘verbal and mutual’ understanding between the two parties.
The LMC had recently been overwhelmed by debts. The country’s football league managers are owing a backlog of 19-months salary to their staff.
They have not been able to fulfill their obligations in payment of match indemnities to match officials in the last two and half years. The LMC are owing millions of naira to several hotels and companies across the country with a debt of about N2billion hovering on their head.
The cancellation of the deal is one of the reasons why the NPFL cannot start despite concrete assurance that the 2021/22 NPFL season will get underway latest by first week in October.
The deal between LMC and Bet9ja was announced second week in September though the LMC did not state the duration of the sponsorship agreement.