Decades ago, it would have been comfortable to sit back and enjoy the popularity of a TM (Team Manager), but it’s not easy anymore. If you’re in the football management circle in Nigeria, you would have heard of the “double Crunch” placing too much pressure on administrators of Nigeria Premier league (NPL) clubs. Never before have successive club managers like Anyansi Agwu, The Chairman of Eyimba FC of Aba, face as many complex challenge of coping with a situation in which traditional revenue sources are declining at the same time cost of running a club is escalating rapidly. Over the years, traditional sources of revenue – government fund, Private donations, Ticket sales, and revenue from Signage Ads around the stadium pitch – have all declined; while players salaries, bonuses, cost of equipment and travel expenses (transportation and accommodation) are sky rocketing.
Truly, most of the football clubs in Nigeria are merely surviving on a substantial budget cut, forcing a decline in the effectiveness of the club operation: Managers could not fulfill the club’s obligation to the players and coaching staff. They couldn’t pay sign-on fees, salaries and bonuses, as agreed with each player or coach – leading to gross breach of contracts, strike actions, players’ travel for trials abroad without permission – over all indiscipline and poor performance.
In some of these NPL clubs, they don’t even have the basic training equipment and the coaches are forced to improvise. Most of them travel long distance by road and sometimes, they travel all day or over the night to play with fatigue on the same day of arrival. Many a time, some of the clubs face attack of armed robbers or accident on the bad roads.
It looks different when a football loving governor comes to office, the club of that state enjoys substantial support and begins to do well; as the governor pump up the budget, and the best players in the country go to sign for the club. This is the reason for Eyimba FC great conquest during the era of Orjiuzor Kalu. But when such a governor leaves office the club begins to suffer deplorable conditions. Perhaps, this is why clubs in Nigeria are not consistent in their performance level. It shouldn’t be that way!
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| Driving NPL Managers to a new direction of success |
Football club managers should face the new reality. They must look beyond the traditional financing sources and supplement them with new imaginative approach for profit. Today, a football club manager is required to seek out scarce resources such as sponsorship, merchandising, TV media rights, fan club membership, collaboration and partnership deals with various interest organizations. Greenhunters is positioned to show them a new direction of success in the management of their clubs. They’re helping club managers to take advantage of these new revenue sources that would expand their capacity to deliver lasting success for their club.
NPL clubs don’t need another administrator, what they need now is an entrepreneurship minded manager, the one who can use both his marketing and financial skills to ensure that scarce resources are acquired and allocated in such a way that it’ll yield profit for the club. Lasting success can only be achieved by a manager who aggressively seeks out creative revenue sources for the club.
Once these innovative revenue sources are identified, the effective manager would know how best to exploit them to ensure that the club’s customers (Fans, Shareholders, organizations, media etc) receive maximum satisfaction.
It’s not acceptable that club managers should sit back on the armchair waiting for the government or club owner to release funds before they could set in motion their programs for the club. It’s not acceptable, not anymore.
Contact: GreenHunters Sports International – Mobile Phone: +234 806 287 1873 or Email : gh.sport1@gmail.com
