Can the Nigerian League ever hit global standards?

Half a century on from when the Nigerian league started, the competition is still languishing in mediocrity and incompetence.

The Nigerian top-flight is called the Nigeria Professional Football League, but the “Professional” is only by nomenclature. The reality is that there is very little about the league that is professional.

There appeared to be a new dawn for Nigerian club football when the League Management Company, a supposedly independent body, took over the running of the league, but over a decade down the line, there has been no appreciable change in the fortunes of NPFL.

There has been plenty of talk about how the league would be revolutionised under the LMC, but unfortunately, the talk has barely made it beyond the pages of newspapers.

At the start of almost every season, the LMC comes out with bullish pronouncements about stadium standards, player salaries and so on, accompanied by potential sanctions for clubs that fail to meet up to these fancy standards, but in the end, nothing really changes.

The same ailments that have afflicted the league for over a decade are still very much present.

From an infrastructure perspective, we are still struggling. Admittedly, there are some decent grounds going around, but most of the stadiums being paraded as in the league are just not good enough.

Players still travel long distances by road to fulfil away matches. Clubs are still very dependent on government funds, and can hardly meet the basic financial obligations of running a professional outfit.

Player-welfare remains a big issue, with some clubs owing their staff backlogs of salaries. This is one of the main reasons why our NPFL players flee the country at the slightest opportunity, even if it means going to Malta or Vietnam.

At the administrative level, the league organisers have looked to be out of their depths. Over the years, getting the league on TV has been hard work, so has been finding and holding on to sponsors.

It is amazing that despite there being so many sports betting sites in Nigeria, our league cannot attract any of them to inject some serious money into the competition.

Also, the LMC has not been decisive enough in the day-to-day running of the NPFL.

Their reactions to vices like crowd trouble at match venues have been shocking, handing out cheap fines and ineffective stadium bans to offending teams.

Clearly, that hasn’t worked as incidents of trouble still persist. They need to be more decisive with their actions if they are to stamp out these problems. Actual points deductions, rather than suspended points deductions from erring teams will be a good place to start.

Looking through all the issues with the league, and the length of time they have gone on for, one begins to wonder, will we ever get it right?

Will we ever get to the levels of South Africa, let alone the European leagues?

Nothing is impossible, of course, but we need a radical change in personnel and mentality for us to start seeing the first real sign of change.