Presently, Nigeria football is
in it's darkest period. Fans, Media and sponsors have all abandoned the league due
to the ineptitude of government and administrators of the sport. There are no developmental
plan for the growth of football in the country... so, what informed Mr. Brown's
predictions? But he said, "In some of these challenges lies some great opportunities
and any good investor could take advantage of the situation now to position his
business as a market leader."
There are indications though,
that President Goodluck Jonathan's regime may usher in the good tidings. Perhaps,
the much cried about "football policy and full private participation will soon
take off." The president has called up stakeholders to come together and discuss
the way forward for football in Nigeria. Lagos state government has already taken
initiative to organize seminars and bring in expertirates to help re-direct our
football industry.
Smart and passionate investors
are gradually positioning their business for the impending industry boom. There
are viable areas where you can invest money and start adding value immediately.
1. TRAINING PERSONNEL (Administrators,
Coaches, Referee...) : The challenges is not only about corruption in the system,
it's more about square pegs in round holes. There are lots of loopholes to be covered.
What we have today is more of passionate and committed administrators that lack
technical competence and business management skills.
There is an urgent need to start
training personnel to take over the administration of our football in the coming
dispensation. We should complement the effort of Nigeria institute of sports. Private organizations should start investing in
the provision of trainings to bridge the gap in the quickest possible time.
2. DEVELOPING TALENT : Football
talents are abound in Nigeria no doubt. You could find kids playing football everywhere
across the country. But there arent structure
in place to "catch them young" and develop them for future business engagements.
School football is almost dead
and we just have few football academies - Kwara state football Academy and Pepsi
Academy. Organizations and institutions should start investing in providing Academies
and tournaments. They should seek for foreign affiliations that can help groom the
enamous talents we have in the country.
3. DATA CAPTURE: It's most glaring
that Nigeria football industry as a whole lack data. There are no data capture machanism
and storage for historical surveys, Age discrepancies verifications, Performance
evaluation and customer targeting.
There is an urgent need for research
companies to start investing along this line. Some businessmen can collaborate or
acquire franchise abroad to set footballl research companies in Nigeria.
4. EVENT/ STADIUM MANAGEMENT:
There are challenges when it comes to stadium maintenance in Nigeria. Government
have a poor maintenance culture and we need some private organization to start investing
along this line.
Another challenge is ambush marketing
practise due to poor event management skills. This may be one of the reasons sponsors
stay away from Nigeria football events. There is urgent need for investors to invest
in football events/ stadium management to add value to the total packaging of the
sport.
5. SPORT MARKETING: Apart from
other equally important reasons, fans, media and sponsors abandon of the league
could be attributed to lack of effective marketing. For any business to happen,
we have to bring back the fans and get them to start patronizing Nigeria football.
There is urgent need for investors
to invest in the marketing of Nigeria football. We need to identify the urgent needs
of fans and anticipate how best to deliver Nigeria football to them and make profit
out it.
