It’s no longer news that the League Management Company, LMC which was in charge of the league for over four seasons, have been scrapped by the Minister for Youth and Sports, Sunday Dare after it was declared “illegal”.
The circular released by the Ministry in September and signed by its Secretary, Ismaila Abubakar stated that “the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) fraudulently floated the LMC to avoid and evade pre-existing debts and other obligations owed by the organisation it succeeded; the Nigeria Premier League Limited, which is originally mandated by law to run a professional football league in Nigeria.”
However, the dissolution of the Shehu Dikko’s led LMC then birth an Interim Management Company, IMC to oversee the league pending the time a framework will be sorted.
The IMC was then officially set up last Friday by NFF president, Ibrahim Gusau in a 14-man committee which included the likes of Paul Bassey and Kunle Soname who are club owners to support the Chairman, Gbenga Elegbeleye.
Update on the NPFL 👇@thenff President Ibrahim Gusau inaugurates NPFL’s IMC, demands integrity in the Nigeria League.
TERMS OF REFERENCE 👇 pic.twitter.com/emhy1aYxEb
— Adepoju Tobi Samuel 🇳🇬 (@OgaNlaMedia) October 21, 2022
Earlier before Friday, about 13 NPFL club owners paid the NFF President, Gusau a courtesy visit where they highlighted the problems the league had faced under the obsolete Shehu Dikko-led LMC in the last couple of years in what I will call “crocodile tears”.
According to them, they spoke about, lack of sponsorship, poor officiating, insecurity, absence of TV broadcast, poor infrastructure, incompetence administrator and the rest of others as the problem that has halted the league from reaching the optimal level of excellence.
This whole problem is 80% created by the Club Chairmen.
REVEALED:
The NPFL clubs met with @thenff President Ibrahim Gusau & admitted matches are FIXED & the title is won by the highest BIDDER.
They also indicted NFF Referees Committee.
They admitted, they are POOR ADMINISTRATORS.
However, they are asking to run the League.
— Adepoju Tobi Samuel 🇳🇬 (@OgaNlaMedia) October 19, 2022
But the big question is will all this change with the set-up of IMC?
Has all this not been ongoing before the creation of LMC? Has there not been inadequate infrastructures even in the days of Baribote and other League administrators? So what makes the Club Owners under the leadership of Isaac Danladi believe there will be a light at the end of the tunnel?
This and many more questions will be discussed in my series.
The league has been on break for over 60 days ever since the completion of the 2021/2022 season in July.
Although some would tag the long hiatus to be as a result of the dissolution of the LMC coupled with the NFF election, the truth of the matter is those reasons are quite baseless as this isn’t the first time a new season will linger for months.
Last year, the new season was postponed till December before it officially kicked off. But the kudos the LMC got for the just concluded season was a fast finish compared to previous years.
The lingering resumption of the new season shows how shoddy our football has been in the past. The standards and other factors have been a shadow of itself. More also, the leadership of the league and club administrators reveal the priorities of both parties as a “caricature” movement of football administrators who care only for their pockets.
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