FANS SACK NFF AND NPL: Call Foreign Expatriates to Take Over Our Football Administration

Fans are already calling for expatriate football administrators. I have listened to several interviews recently and the one conducted by Brila FM radio, obviously from an angry fan who said, “We’ve used foreign based players and we’ve also tried home based players, but it didn’t work. We’ve used foreign based coaches and we’ve also tried indigenous coaches, yet our football keep going down; may be we should try foreign administrators…”  It may sound sarcastic – right? May be the fan was joking or spoke out of anger. Wrong! The fan has just given to us a simple solution to the complex problems Nigeria football is facing – The administrators!

It seem that Nigeria football administrators still lag behind in football regulations and couldn’t just provide the enabling environment to grow football in the country. Maybe, it’s the corruption thing and may be, it’s government politics that select football mediocre into administrative positions in Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and Nigeria Premier League (NPL). Perhaps, this may be the first issue to address urgently, if we intend to move our football forward. We’ve to rid our football of unethical and illegal conducts. We’ve to enact laws to regulate corrupt practices in the football system.

The growth of football in any county depends on regulations. Making the right  rules and implementing them to the latter.Well, it seem most personnel in NFF and NPL doesn’t have the capacity – the knowledge and experience – to administer a fl edging tournament like English Premier League (EPL). The simple solution is to contract the consortium managing EPL, then allow them free hand to lay the right foundation for Nigeria football i.e putting the right policies in place and train our personnel on how to administer the various aspects of modern football sport.

May be, there’s the adjustment thing. We may be thinking of another colonization, but the fact remains that NFF and NPL are not getting it right. We cannot continue to run in a vicious circle in the name of initialization. As long as NFF and NPL continue to administer the wrong prescriptions on our football challenges, the game  will continue to go down. It’s not about employing another foreign technical director or employing another indigenous coach. It’s not about whether or not, we should use foreign based players or home based players to prosecute our football engagements, it’s about providing an enabling environment for our football to grow.

The competition is intense with the introduction of cable television that now expose fans to football games around the world. Already, most Nigeria football consumers have lost interest in ‘made in Nigeria football.’ We need an urgent intervention in the matter. And the interventionist must be seasoned football administrators that we can model. Those who’ll put our football on the right footing, to provide consumers the best quality football Nigeria has to offer.