[July 15, 2009] Memo to the NFL Congress Tweet Lagos, Jul 15, 2009 (This Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- The annual congress of the Nigerian Professional league will be held mid July 2009. Having supervised another season with controversial ending it is important to review the challenges facing the league and proffer the way forward. Reportage of our league in both the print and electronic media constitutes a major challenge facing the Nigerian Premier League. The way our league is appreciated is a function of the information being fed to the fans. A content analysis of both print and electronic media suggests a lack of grounding of many sports journalists. Typical headlines from league venues goes thus "NPL Chairman accuses club chairmen of bribing referees". "Player slaps referee in Minna". "Coaches of xyz club quarrel openly in Kotangora". Compare this with foreign league reportage: "Mikel sinks Everton". "Yobo stops Manchester United". It is even worse in the electronic media where analysts who have never, I repeat, never visited a premier league venue feed the public with distorted information. While the Nigerian sports journalist report negative events around the game of football the foreign journalist report the game. Thus, the press as opinion and agenda setter has through lack of depth and understanding of football reportage contributed in keeping the fans away from the league venues. Both the NPL and NFF should adopt a deliberate strategy through training and provision of resources like a functional and interactive website that can have match reports well written and posted on the web site. Action pictures from venues should be available on this site within an hour of the conclusion of the games. The information department of the NFL should be manned by competent professionals with a vision and capacity to drive a more acceptable perception for the league. This function can as well be outsourced to professional consultants through competitive bidding. The security challenges confronting the league can be tackled on two levels: Venue security and players behavior. Until a security policy is adopted in line with FIFA guidelines match officials or players would continue to fall victim to crowd violence at the different stadia. Each Premiership team should be made to have a chief security officer, who would be trained by the NPL on crowd and mob behavior control during games. During my visit to over 20 league venues not once was a security check carried out on me. All kinds of dangerous items like soft drinks in bottles and pure water sachets were hawked openly during games. These are ready weapons during crowd trouble. Through policy guidelines, clubs could be advised on security, ticketing and ground management. The Nigerian players on the local league have no respect for referees. A code of conduct should be agreed to by the clubs. Also, coaches whose players heckle referees should be made to face touch line bans. Clubs are to go through this code of conduct with their players regularly. There are laws governing the game but player attitude to referees in Nigeria is on the extreme and must be handled with all the seriousness it deserves. Quality of refereeing in the Nigerian league is very appalling. Central to bringing the fans back to the stands is for the better side to win always whether playing home or away. Unfair decision will put off genuine fans from the matches. Based on performance the NPL / NFF should ensure credible referees are sent to cover some high profile matches that have the tendencies to implode. The greatest asset of any soccer league system is the emergence of strong financially viable clubs. Why are our clubs not attracting sponsorship? The answer resides with the management of the Nigerian Premier League. Soccer League formats world over is club centred. The idea is to make the clubs the centre of attraction. We hardly hear about the league boards in the leagues we are trying to copy. Thus, apart from two or three rights that clubs surrender to the league board, because when sold as a bundle will generate more money for all the clubs all other properties belong to the clubs. However, the Nigeria Premier League has no defined sponsorship policy that can be accessed by the investing public. Apart from Globacom, the title sponsor of the league at close to N900 million per season, the Nigeria league has not attracted any other sponsor both at club and National level. If they have, the value is unknown and clubs have not received any money. The NPL has been signing spurious sponsorship deals that add no value to our club sides. Apart from N10 million paid to each club from the Globacom fee no other money has been paid to the clubs. This is criminal and must stop as it seems some people because of their selfish interests want to ruin our club football. Due to a lack of clear sponsorship direction club commercial properties are often abused by the league board most often using ignorant match commissioners to deny clubs of their rights. Two years after a cable TV firm started showing our league matches to its global audience no one knows what they paid the league board as right fee. The clubs whose matches are being telecast have not received a dime. Recently the Nigeria Basket Ball Federation entered a deal worth about N125 million with the same firm for broadcasting of basket ball matches . Even countries like Ghana which recently signed a league title sponsorship are getting it right. In one of the matches shown on cable television, three telecommunications firms were present through different platforms: perimeter panels, shirt endorsement and short display. South African league is heavily patronized by corporate South Africa. The television right fee for the Kenyan league is known to every one. All the multinationals and big firms that have distanced themselves from Nigerian club football league are pouring millions of dollars into club commercial properties elsewhere on the continent. As a matter of urgency the next NPL congress should adopt a common commercial and sporshorsip policy without which attracting sponsorship for clubs may never work. Finally, the reputation of the Nigerian football league is on the rise, but we cannot grow beyond this stage unless people with modern management experience, not necessarily ex-footballers, are made to take the driving seat in the Nigerian premier league secretariat. John wrote from Osogbo [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]