The curtains will fall on the 2022 edition of the FIFA World Cup on Sunday at the Lusail stadium in Qatar as defending champions France battle two time winners Argentina in the final match of the tournament. In addition, France will be seeking to make history as the first to successfully defend the title in 60 years. The last country that achieved the feat was Brazil in 1962.
As is the norm, before the commencement of Qatar 2022, all the major football leagues in the world went on break to allow players to represent their countries at the tournament.
Thus, leading football leagues like the English Premier League, the Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, French Ligue 1 and Italian Serie A all went on break thereby freeing superstars like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, Osumane Dembele, Bernado Silva, Olivier Giroud, Luka Modric, Robert Lewandowski, Harry Kane, Angel Di Maria and a host of others to set the world stage aglow with breath-taking football skills.
Interestingly, each of the leagues that went on the compulsory break stated clearly when it would resume. For instance, the most followed football league in the world, the English Premier League will resume on Monday, December 26, Bundesliga, Serie A and Eredivisie(Dutch topflight) would re-start in January 2023 while La liga joins the Premier League to resume in December 2022.
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It is also important to note that as the world awaits the end of Qatar 2022, other leagues have gone ahead to resume before the ‘big fives’ resumption. This is not surprising because in organised climes where football is serious business, leagues resumption and closing dates are sacrosanct.
Unfortunately, the then League Management Company (LMC) which concluded the 2021/2022 season very late, failed to harmonise its calendar with the advanced leagues, thereby making it impossible for the NPFL to start the 2023 season at the same time with others.
Therefore, while the other leagues that had commenced approached the halfway mark, the league organisers in Nigeria were busy shifting resumption date for the Nigerian topflight. Things then got to a head in September when the Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare, announced the scrapping of the LMC which was saddled with the responsibility of organising the NPFL.
In place of the LMC, the sports minister constituted an Interim Management Committee which was eventually inaugurated by the new NFF president Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau. The inauguration of the IMC by the NFF conferred legitimacy on the care-taker body and ended whispering protests that greeted the decision to replace the LMC with the IMC.
The IMC is made up of well known football administrators like former Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Hon, Gbenga Elegbeleye as chairman, Paul Bassey, vice-chairman and Davidson Owunmi, Head of Operations. The committee also has former international, Daniel Amokachi and proprietor of Remo Stars, Kunle Soname among others.
At the inauguration of the IMC , president of the NFF, Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau, said “There is a lot of work to be done by this committee of eminent and respectable persons in Nigeria football, people with the pedigree and real calibre to effect change. One of the changes must be to ensure that our league is back on television and that there is a lot of integrity and credibility in the way and manner it is being administered.
“I have tremendous confidence in the chairman and members of the committee that they will justify the confidence reposed in them by the Government and people of Nigeria.”
Although the committee whole-heartedly accepted the onerous responsibility, nearly two months after, it is beginning to appear as if the domestic league has moved from frying pan to fire. After the IMC’s meeting with the 20 NPFL clubs, expectations were high that the league would resume as soon as the Qatar 2022 World Cup in Qatar is over.
However, the enthusiasm that greeted the meeting with the club owners dropped drastically when the IMC publicly distanced itself from the widely publicised December 18 kick-off date for the 2022/2023 NPFL season.
The chairman of the IMC, Elegbeleye, reportedly said the date for resumption of the league was only a figment of the imagination of some journalists who wanted to stampede the IMC into re-starting the domestic league.
Instead, the IMC recently organised a four-club pre-season tournament called NPFL-Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation pre-season Super Cup where one of the traditional clubs in Nigerian football, IICC Shooting Stars also known as 3SC, won the trophy and the cash prize of N100m which is presently enmeshed in controversy.
Even as the IMC said the pre-season tournament played at the Remo Stadium in Ikenne and Mobolaji Johnson Arena in Lagos was a dress rehearsal for the 2023 NPFL season, there is nothing to suggest that the league will resume this year.
Therefore, most football stakeholders are pained that the league was in comatose before the start of the 2022 FIFA World Cup and it will be nowhere to be found even when the other leagues re-start at the end of the ongoing World Cup in Qatar.
A football club owner who pleaded for anonymity told Trust Sports that waiting for the IMC to kick-start the league is going to be endless.
He said the body does not have the money required to organise the 2022/2023 NPFL season.
“We have only moved from bad to worse. I am sure that if they were allowed to continue, by now the LMC would have started the new season.
“Even if the Federal Government releases money to the IMC, they won’t commence the league this year. Those who are eager to see the return of the NPFL may wait for a very long time,” he said.
On his part, the Chairman of the FCT Football Association, Alhaji Adam Mouktar Mohammed, said “The 2023 season of the NPFL will definitely experience serious challenges as it is a transition time in Nigerian football leadership.
“A lot of things need to be restructured and re-aligned for the league in Nigeria to take shape. The Interim Management Committee are working hard to come up with a plan but their tenure is quite short.
“So, we wait to see what plans they eventually roll out. Like I said, we must take tough decisions to lay lasting solutions and foundations to develop our local football value chain.”
The captain of one of the NPFL clubs from the north-central also said the failure of football authorities to re-start the league is not only embarrassing but a potential disaster.
“Isn’t it shameful that so many months after we managed to conclude the 2022 NPFL season, nobody can tell exactly when the next edition will start.
“When the December 18 date began to fly around, some of us took it with a pinch of salt because we had heard and read similar news. I wasn’t excited and today I have been vindicated. Where is the NPFL?” he asked rhetorically.
However, a member of the IMC said “What is worth doing is worth doing well. I know Nigerians are eager to watch NPFL matches again but we have to get things right, if not we would be running in circles,” he said.
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