The board of the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL), led by Hon. Gbenga Elegbeleye deserves a pat on the back for successfully organising another NPFL season. One of the biggest achievements made by the NPFL was ensuring that the 2024 season started and ended as scheduled. This was what the past board really struggled but failed to achieve in so many years of its existence. Under the League Management Company (LMC), it was difficult to know the day of kick-off and even more difficult to say when the league would end.
It is, therefore, heartwarming that the NPFL has already announced August 31st as the kickoff date for the 2024/2025 season. At least the league body has shown its desire to sustain the present momentum. Moreover, the announcement will enable the clubs to plan ahead. But it must be said that the kickoff date as announced may not be sacred because in the past seasons, the NPFL made similar announcements but ended up postponing the kickoff more than once. Hopefully, this time, they will keep to the date.
Still on some of the positive changes witnessed so far under the Elegbeleye led board, the NPFL in the last two seasons has witnessed remarkable improvement in officiating. It is not yet uhuru, but the high rate of poor officiating which made nonsense of efforts to improve the league is going down.
Maybe the hard stance of the NPFL against dubious referees has yielded positive results as most of the arbiters have turned new leaves in order to avoid the dangling hammer. But considering that over 40 referees were either suspended or out rightly sacked from officiating in the just concluded season, there are still some recalcitrant referees around.
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So, while commending the league body, it is necessary to advocate for sterner actions against bad officiating in the league. The NPFL organisers may work tirelessly to produce a hitch-free season but one controversy like the one created by the referee who officiated the match between 3SC and Enugu Rangers in Ibadan can easily spoil the show. What this means is that the league body must redouble its efforts in the area of officiating.
It is, indeed, a thing of joy that the NPL is planning to introduce the use of communication gadgets for referees in the next season. It was not clearly stated if the video assistant referee (VAR) technology will be introduced into the league. But the need to have VAR in the league cannot be overemphasized. Even as the VAR technology as used in some of the advanced leagues like the English Premiership also has its own shortcomings, its benefits are enormous.
The NPFL board also did well in the area of security at match venues. If not for the unfortunate incident at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium in Enugu where Enyimba abandoned their title- deciding week 35 fixture against Rangers, and the pitch encroachment in the match between Enyimba and Doma United in Aba, the season would have ended without any serious case of hooliganism.
It is possible that the fear of hefty fines to be imposed on them has made the clubs work on their fans to ensure they are of good behaviour. Football is not war. Therefore, fans are not supposed to be scared away from match venues by irate supporters of the clubs. So, the NPFL should build on the appreciable progress made so far by helping the clubs to continuously sensitise their fans on the need to embrace the spirit of sportsmanship. This should be complemented with fair officiating because the beast in some of the fans is sometimes awakened by referees’ dubious calls.
There is also the need to ensure that clubs that make use of natural playing turfs improve on their facilities. Some of the pitches are not better than horse racing or cattle rearing grounds. Most NPFL clubs still wait on the rainy season to have their pitches green. Once it is dry season, the pitches go bald. And now that we are in the rainy season, most of the natural turfs easily become waterlogged because of poor drainage. NPFL must ensure only pitches that meet FIFA approved standards are used for matches.
Even as this is the primary responsibility of the club owners, the NPFL should find a way to assist the clubs to come up with more acceptable and convenient means of transportation for players and officials. It is really surprising how players cope with the long trips on our bad roads. Imagine that Kano Pillars or Katsina United sometimes spend three days on the road travelling down south to play against Rivers United in Port-Harcourt or Bayelsa United in Yenagoa.
The same applies to Remo Stars or 3SC who cover hundreds of kilometers on the death traps called roads to honour a fixture with Gombe United or Pillars in Kano. Now that El-kanemi are back in the topflight, imagine Rivers United travelling all the way to play El-Kanemi Warriors in Maiduguri. What is usually left inside the players after such long trips is the amateurish football they play on the bad pitches.
So, to save the lives and careers of the players, the NPFL organisers should support the clubs to enter into partnerships with indigenous airline operators to lift their players to distant match venues. Already, clubs like Enyimba, Bendel Insurance and Remo Stars have achieved this to some extent. They fly their players to some of their away matches, especially when they are going to the far north.
In the advanced leagues, even in Africa, there are some distances that clubs are not allowed to cover by road. This is to avoid putting too much pressure on the players. Unfortunately, clubs in the NPFL still spend days and nights on the road inside rickety buses and once they arrive at the match venue, they go straight into the field to play.
For instance, after a home match against Doma United on Saturday, Katsina United left for Uyo on Sunday and arrived on Tuesday. The following day, they played Akwa United and lost inevitably. Meanwhile, the club chairmen, most times, fly to the match venues, leaving their players to face killer bandits and kidnappers on the highly insecure and blood sucking roads.
Yes, some of us have seen genuine efforts by the present NPFL board to change the old order of things in the Nigerian topflight. But the organisers must not rest on their oars because the league is still far below the standard in other leagues in Africa.
Nigeria is an undisputed heavyweight in African Football but our league can’t be compared with South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and even Congo and Tanzania who are fast closing the gap on the English Premiership, and the rest of the developed leagues in the area of visibility and profitability. Only recently, Enyimba FC Captain, Ojo Olorunleke, dumped the NPFL giants for a club in Sudan. The implication is that the Sudanese league is even more lucrative than ours.
In view of the above, the NPFL board should take a pat on the back and go back to the drawing board to come out with more innovations to make the league more attractive and competitive. We are all waiting to see how the league organisers will address most of the problems that have remained cogs in the wheel of progress. And the right way to start is to ensure that the August 31 kickoff date is sacrosanct.
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