NPFL: A turnaround defying odds, offering hope

The manifestation of a functioning league is well spelt out in the fact that the current Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) is scheduled to end on June 9, 2024 when the 20 clubs would compete on the same day for the Week 38 games.

But more than that, the champion would have received N150 million, a 50 percent increase from the previous season’s prize money. Each of the 20 competing clubs would have gotten a take-off grant of N10 million, as well as the referees would have been accorded an unprecedented welfare package.

The GTI Asset Management & Trust Limited, sponsor of the league this year and a strategic partner of the NPFL, would have changed the course of history and by implication brought upon the league a revolution that had been long awaited, especially after sealing the ten-year deal with the NPFL worth N10 billion, covering title sponsorship, broadcast rights, match officials’ indemnities, infrastructure development and properties, having ensured that the 20 premier league clubs become independent of government sponsorship. Ultimately, the signing of a N1.6 billion five-year deal between satellite TV outfit StarTimes and the NPFL on November 2, 2023 in Abuja would have helped to secure the confidence that the fans needed to restore the league’s battered image.

Gone would have been the era of open-ended sponsorship deals that neither gave hope nor fulfilled aspirations and abridged league would have become a mere footnote of football history in Nigeria.

Despite all the foregoing successes, projected as they are at the moment, the NFPL’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Davidson Owumi, says the league body expects much more to use as the parameter for success. In Owumi’s reckoning, whatever success achieved through the hard work of his team this term would still amount to virtually nothing if the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) does not consider a considerable number of the NPFL players for invitation to the Super Eagles for major international competitions. Owumi recalls with glee how the late former Nigeria international, Stephen Keshi, while coaching the Eagles between 2011 and 2014, made the bold move of picking six NPFL players in his final 23-man squad to the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations finals in South Africa. Sunshine Stars of Akure had defender Godfrey Oboabona, Warri Wolves had another defender Azubuike Egwuekwe, Kano Pillars had midfielder Reuben Gabriel while Rangers of Enugu had goalkeeper Chigozie Agbim and the duo of midfielder Sunday Mba and forward Ejike Uzoenyi. Mba, in particular, did not only win the semifinals ticket of the competition for Nigeria after scoring the crucial goal with which Eagles edged Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire 2-1 in the gruelling quarterfinal game, but he also went ahead to score the only goal with which Nigeria beat Burkina Faso in the final game to win the trophy.

Despite the foregoing feat actualised by an NPFL player and Owumi’s renewed projection, however, there has been a strident criticism leveled against the NPFL players vis-à-vis their easy passage to the Eagles’ camp. But it still has to be said that the criticism borders on the ridiculous, even though the critics would not readily admit it. Two most indefensible criticisms stand out: One, that the NPFL players lack the quality required to play in the Eagles. Two, that as soon as any NPFL player gets invitation to play in the Eagles, he hops into the aircraft to foreign countries in search of clubs. Up till this moment, the NFF’s Technical Department has yet to disclose the exact criteria required for players to be invited to the Eagles. This can be easily explained by the innumerable number of players that have been invited from supposedly quality foreign leagues but many of who have neither added any value to the Eagles nor demonstrated enough talent to deserve the invitation in the first place. Also, it is the dream of every player in the NPFL to ply his trade abroad – with a twin aim to improve on his talent and gain financial prosperity. How such a dream could be faulted on the basis of depriving an NPFL player his deserved call to serve the national team is simply inexplicable.

Yet, the critics have obstinately held on to this anti-NPFL players stand and are apparently goaded by the NFF whose somewhat unwritten policy tends to favour Nigerian players in the foreign leagues above those in the domestic league for invitation to the Eagles. Only last weekend in Tunisia, Club Africain defeated Rivers United 3-0 in their CAF Confederation Cup group game.

But Club Africain’s forward Kingsley Eduwo, who scored two of the goals, was recently in the employ of Rivers United. He obviously wouldn’t be employed by the Tunisian side if he lacked the quality required by the club’s scouts. Interestingly, Eduwo did not even earn the Eagles’ invitation before venturing to the Tunisian league, putting a lie to claims by the anti-NPFL critics that only Eagles’ invitation paves the way for the domestic players to secure clubs abroad.

Recent happenings in the Eagles also call for scrutiny, considering how the team has persistently failed to raise its standard to a competitively formidable level. Suffices it to say that although the team has the compliment of one of the most deadly strike force in the world today, its midfield and defence continue to leave so much to be desired in quality. Even then, its goalkeeping is awful. But interestingly, the keeper that has inspired the least confidence in recent years plies his trade in Europe. And despite a looming Afcon finals in Cote d’Ivoire, it appears the goalkeeping problem would persist, posing danger to Nigeria’s run at the competition. But how could a functioning technical department of the NFF not scout the NPFL for at least three quality keepers that can encourage stiff competition for the Eagles’ goalkeeper’s spot?

Although the current NPFL season is in Week 15, the excitement is on a high tempo. Match Day 11 saw Kano Pillars’ forward Yusuf Abdullahi scoring all the five goals for his team in a 5-2 away defeat of Gombe United. Safe for a few outstanding games, a total of 217 goals have been scored. The crowds that are steadily thronging the grounds are indicative of the confidence that is returning to the domestic league. It can only get better in the weeks ahead.