4 Working Tips to Make Your Football Academy Extemely Profitable in Nigeria

You may start a football academy with passion, but you need regular source of income or funding to sustain it over time. Starting an academy as business, you should have a clear plan of how you are going to breakeven, or better still make profit.

What usually happen in Nigeria is, most owners of football academies raise funds from other businesses they do and channel the money into their academy. This isn't a sustainable way of running an academy. By and large, the owner will be weighed down if the academy cannot sustain itself financially. This is the reason some academies start off with so much enthusiasm, but  fade away after few years.

Finding sources of funding for your Academy must be a priority. As you would soon discover, there’s enormous amount of work involved in setting up a Football Academy, which also means there are costs. I mean enormous amount of expenditures such as: Football Association registration, kits, pitch rental/purchase, accommodation/feeding,  insurance, travelling, staff salaries and possible league or tournament fee, all need to be paid for.

There are many ways you can generate income for your Academy but I will like to share four major  tips...sources of revenue and profits as  it relates to operating in Nigeria sports business environment.

1. Tuition Fee:
Obviously, a Football Academy is the place where junior footballers go to learn the right techniques and tactics to prepare them for a professional career in this sport. A football Academy is like an organised college or institution, where special subjects or skills are taught.

Most young people enrol into a Football Academy for one basic reason to learn how to become world-class professional footballers. So like in every school, they have to pay a kind of tuition fee.....yearly, per semester, term or quarterly as recommended by your management.

All the academies I know in Nigeria: KFA, Midas, Pepsi, Bescola...take Admission and tution fees. So you should do same too.

2. Training Compensation Fee: 
This is in fact the major source of income and profit for most succsssful academies. Training compensation fee is paid to an academy when it's player is successfully transfered into a professional club, especially abroad.

Therefore, your academy must come up with the right strategies to recruiting very talented and skilled players. You must also recruit the right personnel, coaching staff that has what it takes to groom these raw talents.

Second, you should expose your talented players to the right tournament or programs where they will play in front of Scouts and Agents...that will eventually link or recommend them to professional  clubs for possible transfer.

Recently, Yemi Idowu's Nath Boys made £1.7 million being 10% training compensation the Lagos Metro league club got from the transfer of their player, Wilfred Ndidi to Leicester City for £17million in January 2017.


 3. Sponsorships/ Donations from local businesses Or Philantropists: 
If your academy is doing well, in terms of winning trophies and raising popular talents, it will definitely become attractive to local fans... and consequently local businesses and Philanthropists will be interested in become part of the success through sponsorahip or fund raising.

But you must pre-empt them. Look out for possible local businesses or Philanthropists such as politicians; ex-footballers, Rich individuals with passionate interest in football, send them SPONSORSHIP PROPOSALS and in return offer them board members or chairman of the academy. You could offer norminal or title sponsorship, and the academy begins to bear the name of the local business or the individual philanthropist.

Pepsi Football Academy is sponsored by 7up Bottling Company, Papilo Football Academy is owned and sponsored by ex-Intenational Nwankwo Kanu. And Buruji Football Academy is owned and named after Senator Buruji Kashamu, Chairman of Kasaml Group of Companies...

Moreover, create some fund raising programs and event where you can invite these local businesses or philanthropists to come and make donaton.

4. Affiliation Support from Foreign Professional Clubs:
Since Fifa has made the transfer of under aged players illegal, many foreign clubs are now seeking for how to expand their tentacles for discovering young talents for their clubs and transfermarket business. So they quickly take advantage of Academies that worth their salt.

Foreign clubs are looking towards Nigeria when it comes to youth talents. The reason being that Nigeria has won FIFA U17 World Cup five times and back to back in 2013 and 2015. The world were amazed at the turn out of different sets of outstanding youth players from this West Afrocan country.

Today, FC Barcelona Spain has a Bescola Academy in Lagos Nigeria, FC Ebiede is affiliated to FC Midijaats Denmark, Irruka Football Academy is affiliated to PSG France, COD is also affiliated to Bolton Wanderers England...

The foreign club your academy gets affiliated to can provide better funding, world class training equipments and kits,  qualified personnel...

Just like any well planned business organization, when you’re setting up a Football Academy, you should decide on the path you wish to take to help you achieve your vision and goals. Getting regular financial revenue and profits is your game point.