Side Kick

NPFL: LMC, other stakeholders must ensure hitch free 2018 season

 

With Adebayo Olodan

With the 2017/18 Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) season set to kick off next week, it is imperative for the League Management Company (LMC), the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and other stakeholders to ensure all plans are in place to ensure a hitch free campaign.

To make the NPFL attractive to league followers and future investors, the LMC must ensure all bottlenecks or the larger percentage of those challenges are taken care of ahead of the coming season. Chiefly among those draw backs is the issue of clubs failing on their contractual agreement with coaches and players alike.

Some of our domestic league players and coaches are made to play matches on empty stomachs as clubs neither pay their salaries and bonuses and sign-on fees as earlier agreed. Due to the insincerity and unprofessional conducts of domestic club managers, more than a few of the players had been led into signing ‘slave contracts’ with clubs in obscure leagues abroad. Some of the affected players had on many occasions forgone backlog of salaries, bonuses and sign-on fees in the past to ensure the release of the transfer certificates in order to force a move to other clubs.

From the North to the South, West to the East, there is virtually no club that does not owe the players or pay its playing staff and coaches promptly.

Many league aficionados will recollect how a Nasarawa United player lost his son while trying to recoup his salary backlog alongside his teammate from the state government about three years ago. The players of Nasarawa ended up being paid pittance after laying siege at the Government House, Lafia entrance for a week. In similar vein, players of Federation Cup champions, Rivers United practically prostrated for their Governor, Nyesom Wike to fast-track the release of their outstanding salaries and allowances.

To arrest the distasteful practice of players and officials being owed salaries, the LMC will need to wield its stick against clubs that refused to make welfare of players a priority.

Any club that is unable to promptly pay its players and coaches the agreed salaries and bonuses should henceforth be thrown out of the league without hesitation.

In addition, players and coaches should not be made to embark on night journeys to honour away matches.  This has been the practise of ‘greedy club officials’ who consistently divert the funds that would have been expended on hotel bills to their personal account.

Due to the aforesaid arrangement, some players have had their lives and careers truncated, especially through incidence of robbery attack. Also, players who travel in the night to honour away matches are not known to give their best under such circumstance due to fatigue. For this particular season, it will be interesting to see clubs travelling through the airports to honour away matches rather than risking the lives of our talents on our bumpy roads.

Another area the LMC and other stakeholders should strengthen is the issue of security at match venues. Several match officials have had to make questionable decisions in favour of the home teams for the safety of their lives as security men are consistently inadequate at match venues. Also, many Nigerians who ordinarily would have loved to watch domestic league matches have been restricted to watching Premier and other European league matches due to inadequate security in our stadia.

Though officiating has improved in recent years, there is however room for improvement, especially if more domestic league matches are beamed on our television sets and more importantly with better security.

Additionally, the LMC must inspect facilities at different venues and ensure that any club that could not provide the required amenities are made to play away from home and in case of crowd violence, the erring club should be sanctioned heavily to deter others.

Also, there should be proper documentation of players and officials just as the transfer window and deadlines for the season must be spelt out to prevent players from abandoning their clubs midway through the season for trials abroad.

Another area the LMC and management of our domestic clubs must work assiduously on is the issue of accountability. There is scarcely any club in the league that keeps proper records of its finances and accurate transfer fees of players signed or sold to other clubs.

With all the aforesaid issues looked into, I am convinced the NPFL will compete favourably with other top leagues in Africa and those in Europe.

Happy New Year readers!

I found it difficult to believe that 2017 is now in the past as we face another chapter of 365 days called 2018. For the ardent readers of this column, I appreciate you for taking time to read my write-ups and for your words of encouragement through text messages, phone calls and e-mail. I pray that 2018 will be a prosperous year for us all!

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