A clarion call to revive the Local League

Over the years, a lot of sports enthusiasts have clamoured for corporate involvement in Nigerian football. Since the inception of the Nigerian Premier League more than a decade ago, the league has witnessed very little involvement from corporate organisations and individuals.

Although the Premier League era in Nigeria began about 12 years ago when the Nigeria Football Association (NFF) former president Ibrahim Galadima inaugurated an interim committee to run the league, after an end of the then season Championship called the “Super Four”, till date, not enough success has been recorded in terms of viewership, sponsorship and other forms of support enjoyed by clubs outside the country, especially in Europe.

Little wonder why the ultimate goal for “home based players” as they are fondly called is to get signed-on by teams outside of the country, irrespective of their location, performance rating or popularity.

Only last week, Sharks Football Club of Port Harcourt, one of the 20 teams in the Glo Premiere League unveiled their newly branded Jersey; a shirt sponsorship deal with Eunisell, an Africa focused specialty fluid management company, marking a new era in the life of the club. It has been more than 10 years since the Port Harcourt based outfit had a sponsor and this has obviously marked a dawn of a new era for the club.

Many football analysts have argued that such sponsorships though elusive of the Nigerian clubs have the potential to change the fortunes of team given some of the situation the clubs have had to deal with in recent times which include non-payment of players’ salaries for up to 8 to 10 months and in some cases poor remuneration packages for the players.

Currently, out of the 20 teams in our home league, only Sharks of Port Harcourt have shirt sponsors, apart from FC Ifeanyi Ubah (formerly Gabros), which was recently bought over and renamed after its new owner.

The LMC had earlier put some conditions in place, one of which is setting a minimum payable fee of 13% of what the title sponsors are paying by any corporate who wish to take up shirt sponsorship of any club.

According to Sport+MarkT a sports marketing firm revealed that 72% of Africa’s 738 million populations aged between 16-69 years of which more than 20% are Nigerians have an interest in football. The study also shows that 55% of them are interested in the English Premier League, while 39% actively support an English top-flight team.

Given these scenarios, it is easy to see that the opportunities in supporting the local football in Nigeria are enormous. One would expect corporate organisations and well-meaning individuals to invest at home and support the “home based players” thereby making playing football in Nigeria lucrative and attractive. This, analysts have argued that this will go a long way in reducing the quest for Nigerian players to play abroad.

The likes of ex- internationals: Austine Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, Rashidi Yekini, Emmanuel Amunike and host of brilliant players are all products of the Local League before making waves abroad.

Why then are Nigerian Premiere League teams unable to secure sponsorship deals? Why are individuals and corporates body less interested in taking up these teams? With the number of Nigerians that actively support foreign clubs, should our local football not enjoy some level of active participation?

It’s about time Nigerians support Nigerian clubs. If this is done, the potentials of sports to unite us further as a nation, create jobs and develop talents would be harnessed immensely.