IMC Vows To Restore Nigeria’s Elite Football League Glory

The Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) has reiterated its commitment to restore the glory of the nation’s domestic elite football league.

The chairman of the committee, Honourable Gbenga Elegbeleye, made the pledge yesterday while presenting a cheque of N100 Million to the winners of the just concluded Dozy Mmobuosi Super Cup Tournament, Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) of Ibadan in Abuja. He said Nigerian football will take back its pride of place in international football only when the league is run properly as it obtained in the 1970s and 80s.

According to him, Nigeria can surpass Morocco’s World Cup semifinal feat if the domestic league is properly run and players are well motivated with the right things put in place. “Nigeria can go all the way to the World Cup semi final like Morocco if our domestic league is properly run.

“We need to go back to the days when the national team was dominated by players from the domestic league. We have done it before when Nigeria won the 1980 Nations Cup with almost 80 or 90 percent of our domestic footballers.”

He said the IMC under his leadership is working to make the domestic league buoyant and lucrative where clubs can have more money and players pay handsomely for their efforts.

The former federal lawmaker noted that it is the duty of the league body to pay referee indemnities and not the clubs to promote fair officiating.

“We have other things that we are doing to make the league more financially buoyant and financially lucrative so that the clubs can have more money. But you have to compete first and fight for the money and that will bring competition.

“We want a league where the least paid player in the league will be earning nothing less than N1million. We want to bring commercial value to our league and we intend to start the league very soon. We want a league where the first, second and the third-placed teams will get prize money at the end of the season. The clubs will be mobilised with financial support to run their activities and the referees paid as at when due. We have made arrangements not to owe any referee.

The club will not be in charge of referee indemnities because we have sourced for their (referees) money for the season.

“It shouldn’t be clubs that should pay the referees, the system should generate the money.”

The chief operating officer (COO) of the IMC, Davidson Owumi, in his remarks, called for support from every stakeholder to take Nigerian football to the desired height.

“The essence of this press conference is to do an official presentation to the winners of the Dozy Mmobuosi Super Cup which took place in Lagos recently. Four traditional clubs with continental legacies were picked by the sponsors for the maiden edition of the competition. Receiving the N100million cheque, the chairman, 3SC, Honourable Babatunde Olaniyan thanked the organisers of the Super Cup and IMC for organising the competition saying the club will make judicious use of the money.