The Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) has all the ingredients to compete with the best championships in the world, but it needs to be open to the best teams to win, Group Managing Director of Afrinvest West Africa Limited, Ike Chioke, has said.

Chioke was one of the fans at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena, Onikan, Lagos, on Sunday when Enugu Rangers defeated Ikorodu City to win the 2025/26 NPFL title. But he was not pleased with the officiating.

The Enugu Rangers supporter, whose firm is the Flying Antelopes main supporter, said that Nigeria has more than a thousand firms capable of keying into the league if only the managers could make it pleasant to the non-partisan fan.

He said, “You could see this game this evening. Our boys played their hearts out, but you could see that the refereeing wasn’t totally balanced. We need to bring it to the standards of international football.

“It is that ability to bring transparency and discipline to the game that will allow more corporate sponsorship to come in. Afrinvest is a small company relative to all the large blue-chip companies that exist today.

“I mean, if you look at the Nigerian exchange with the valuation of over N150 trillion today, there are many companies whose names should be on many teams; we have over 20 teams in NPFL.

“Going into the next season, you know, the Dangotes of this world, the banks and the cement companies should really be sponsoring football in Nigeria.

“For a country with the kind of youth unemployment we have… more than 70 per cent of our population are under age 25… football can be a mechanism to take people out of poverty, to create employment in merchandising, in football management, in training, in organisation and in the media, among others.

“So that’s why I hope the NPFL will take that charge and allow more transparency and more discipline in the way they do things.”

He said that he will be excited if Afrinvest is allowed to partner with the NPFL at that level, “and hopefully elevate the game even further within Nigeria.”

Chioke congratulated Enugu Rangers for winning their ninth Nigerian league title, adding that the team have had an incredible journey this season.

He said: “We at Afrinvest are particularly proud to be associated with Rangers, and I’ve seen them carry the cup twice in three years.

“That says a lot for when finance meets football at its point of need and brings that discipline, that governance, that institutional capacity to support the team and elevate these young men to a platform where they can begin to see themselves on the global stage and go beyond Nigerian football.”

Chioke was particularly thrilled that two of Enugu Rangers’ players are in the national team preparing for the Unity Cup, which begins today in London. He said, “That shows you the quality of what we have brought to Rangers. We are very proud of what the boys have achieved, and we are super excited that this partnership will continue and take them to higher grounds.”