Here are the particulars for a Nigerian Premier League club I have drawn up. Before I go on, here is a little background.
A city like Lagos with at least 15 million residents should comfortably be able to support 2 Premier League clubs, maybe even 3 or 4 like London. But for starters, let's settle for 2 so we don't get ahead of ourselves. Additionally, cities like Owerri, Aba, Enugu, Onitsha, Ibadan, Uyo, Kano, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Jos, Benin and Abuja should comfortably support at least 1 big Premier League club each with a stadium capacity not below 30,000.
Smaller cities like Abeokuta, Warri, Asaba, Yenagoa, Osogbo, Ado-Ekiti and Akure should realistically be able to support a mid-sized Premier League club apiece with stadium capacities approaching 20,000 - 25,000.
Lagos will have two clubs, Lagos Island FC and Eko FC. Lagos Island FC will target the upmarket Island/Lekki/expatriate crowd and will have a financial strategy leveraged on corporate sponsorship and strategic partnerships. It will be the big "Manchester United" Lagos club which pays superstar salaries, brings in foreign talent and is managed by a big name ex-international like Kanu Nwankwo. It will have a stadium capacity of about 55,000.

EKO FOOTBALL CLUB
This club is the "Everton" of Lagos, targetting the ordinary working class mainland people with a strategy focused on keeping the stadium full.
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Home stadium - Eko Arena [41,000]
Home Kit - Red Shirt, Red Shorts, Red Socks
Away Kit - White Shirt, White Shorts, Red Socks
Third Kit - Black Shirt, Black Shorts, Red Socks

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TICKETS
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Adult Main Stand Matchday Ticket - N500
Kids Main Stand Matchday Ticket - N300
VIP Stand Matchday Ticket - N5,000
Corporate Box Matchday Ticket - N50,000
Over 60's Main Stand Concessionary ticket - N350
Adult Main Stand Season Ticket - N100,000
Kids Main Stand Season Ticket - N65,000

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Corporate Sponsorships and Partnerships
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Zenith Bank (Stadium Naming Rights/Preferred Advertiser - N50,000,000/season

Airtel Nigeria (Shirt Sponsor) - N70,000,000/season

Emirates (Secondary Shirt Sponsor a la Bundesliga and Brazilian Serie A) - N35,000,000

Contracted Matchday Caterers - N10,000,000/season

Mixed Zone/Pitch Hoarding Advertisers - N100,000,000/season

TOTAL - N165,000,000

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CLUB STAFF
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Playing Squad Size - 35

Youth Team Size - 22

Coaching Staff - 10

Health & Fitness Staff - 7

Management & Admin Staff - 25

Security Staff - 21

Part-Time Matchday Staff e.g Stewards, Cleaners - 200

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MATCHDAY REVENUE
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Assuming
30,000 Adult Main Stand Tickets sold/matchday - N15,000,000

8,000 kids tickets sold/matchday - N2,400,000

1,000 Over 60's concessionary Tickets sold/ matchday - N350,000

2,000 VIP Stand tickets sold/matchday - N10,000,000

10 Corporate Boxes sold/matchday - N500,000

Total Ticket Revenue/matchday - N28,250,000

Assuming 20 matchdays/season,
TOTAL TICKET REVENUE/SEASON - N565,000,000

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FIRST TEAM WAGES
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5 players on lowest wage level [N180,000/month] - N900,000/month - N10,800,000/year

15 players on intermediate wage level [N300,000] - N4,500,000/month - N54,000,000/year

5 players on high intermediate level [N500,000/month] - N2,500,000 - N30,000,000/year

8 players on high wage level [N800,000/month] - N6,400,000 - N76,800,000/year

1 player (ex-international/ex-foreign based/specially talented) on enhanced high wage level - N1,500,000/month - N18,000,000/year.

1 player on highest wage level - N3,000,000/month - N36,000,000/year

TOTAL 1st TEAM WAGES - N225,200,000/year

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YOUTH TEAM WAGES
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Flat wage of N85,000/month
- N1,870,000/month
TOTAL YOUTH TEAM WAGES - N22,440,000/season

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COACHING STAFF WAGES
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Head Coach/1st Team Manager - N400,000/month
Asst. Manager - N250,000/month
Youth Team Manager - N200,000/month
Asst. Youth Team Manager - N180,000/month
Club Goalkeeping Coach - N180,000/month
Coach 1 - N150,000/month
Coach 2 - N150,000/month
Coach 3 - N150,000/month
Coach 4 - N150,000/month
Coach 5/Team Psychologist - N150,00/month

TOTAL - N1,960,000/month
- N23,520,000/year

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HEALTH & FITNESS/MEDICAL STAFF WAGES
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Team Doctor - N200,000/month
Physiotherapist - N180,000/month
Team Nurse - N130,000/month
Gym Assistant (2) - N80,000*2 - N160,000/month
Dietician - N180,000/month
Miscellaneous Staff (1) - N65,000/month
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TOTAL = N915,000/month
- N10,980,000/year

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MANAGEMENT & ADMIN STAFF WAGES
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Managing Director - N400,000/month
Director of Football - N250,000/month
Finance Manager - N320,000/month
HR Manager - N280,000/month
Secretary (6) - N70,000*6 - N420,000/month
Driver ( - N45,000*8 - N360,000/month
Stadium Manager - N170,000
Club Historian/Archivist - N60,000
Handyman (5) - N30,000*5 - N150,000/month

TOTAL = N28,920,000/year

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SECURITY & TEMPORARY STAFF WAGES
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Head of Security - N180,000/month
Security Operatives (20) - N25,000*20 = N500,000/month
Part-Time Matchday Staff e.g Stewards, Cleaners (200) = N674,000/month

TOTAL = N1,354,000/month
=N16,248,000/year

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TOTAL STAFF WAGES
=N327,308,000

I think this is a realistic blueprint for a decent sized premier league club. Your thoughts?

wow.... have you tried marketing it?
you play football manager?

you could make a biz plan

Wow!!! U are very fantastic guy, seriously impressed..... People like you should manage a club in Nigeria and transform them into world class or even become NPL board chairmen, I 'm sure our league will witness a drastic positive change. But unfortunately, Nigeria is a country where intellectuals aren't given chances in administration, but coconut heads e.g Giwa, are choosen to rule. If you can come out with a masterplan like this, I guess anyone who loves our football would never plan to contest for NFF president if you are contesting but my guy, kudos to you. You are a Genious, keep it up.

Your plan is an ambitious one! I hope it would be actualized in the future.

Thanks guys I thought this up based on the assumption that at some point, we will all realise what a goldmine our football industry can be and we will make government take its hands off football management.
This is happening, but not at the speed some of us would like. @CFCfan it might seem ambitious but I guarantee you that if you study how much millions of Nigerian football fans spend on just viewing centre entry every weekend, the figure will be in hundreds of millions. The money IS there and thhe market most definitely is there. Now it's about finding the mixture of visionary private capital and political will to start selling this product to Nigerians.
Nigerians already buy Nollywood movies, go to cinemas and spend N1,500 to watch Nollywood movies, buy clothing, furniture and electronics made in Nigeria, fly with Nigerian airlines, and even drive Nigerian-made cars. So it is not such a big deal to convince them to pay N500 to come to a stadium and watch a live game.

Someone with deep pockets or access to deep pockets just needs to take that bold first step.

crownprince102:
Wow!!! U are very fantastic guy, seriously impressed..... People like you should manage a club in Nigeria and transform them into world class or even become NPL board chairmen, I 'm sure our league will witness a drastic positive change. But unfortunately, Nigeria is a country where intellectuals aren't given chances in administration, but coconut heads e.g Giwa, are choosen to rule. If you can come out with a masterplan like this, I guess anyone who loves our football would never plan to contest for NFF president if you are contesting but my guy, kudos to you. You are a Genious, keep it up.

I'm just a young office guy starting out in life so contesting for NFF office is not in the picture at all for now but my hope is that someone somewhere will see this and it will light a bulb inside his/her head.
Even with the current state of our league (owing of players, calamity pitches like Nembe City, security problems, competition from European leagues) the Sani Abacha Stadium in Kano is filled with 25,000 green shirts whenever Pillars are playing at home. That is to show you how passionate Nigerian fans are about football. Once the average Nigerian fan has a club nearby which he/she can feel connected to and genuinely proud of, all the Arsenal/Chelsea/Barcelona hype will disappear in a few months!

Unfortunately the LMC and ultimately the NFF are made up of some very unintelligent people who are only looking at how much free money they can steal from government allocations. They have no ideas and are not open to learning from useful people.
That is why it has never occurred to them that having relegation and promotion every season in a developing league is madness and suicidal - you end up with disaster clubs like Nembe City becoming "Premier League" clubs while solid clubs like 3SC which contribute up to 15% of the league's entire fanbase get relegated. The Americans realised this which is why their MLS has no relegation and promotion into the MLS is more dependent on balance sheets and crowd/stadium statistics than results on the field. They have figured out the secret - the league is strengthened by having strong clubs from large cities make up its numbers.
Here, our largest and most important city has NO club in our so-called Premier League. Lagos, a city of 18 million with a bigger GDP than kenya has two major stadia with combined capacity of about 80,000 which are lying fallow while Nembe, a small creek town without even an actual stadium is parading a "Premier League" club which plays its home matches on an open field and which has no actual fanbase - a ghost club which only exists because a state govt said so. Ibadan, a city of about 5 million people has two major stadia seating 55,000 in total but has no premier league club while Yenagoa, a city of less than 1 million people has one.
Tell this to the dunces at the Glass House and they'll answer "so what?" Because they have no idea that football is 97% planning, marketing, sales, budgeting and forecasting and 3% on-pitch action".

This is the EXACT same problem which goes all the way up to the senior national team. They just expect a coach to invite players, do some tactical magic on them and then win every game 4-0. They will owe salaries, owe bonuses, bungle travel arrangements, fail to market the team to fans and corporates, and fail to look more than 30 days into the future but when the coach loses to Sudan while working on a freelance basis, they will sack him and go and start looking for a foreign magician to hypnotise the team and make them into Brazil 1982 overnight.

They have NO idea what high level football is really all about and the fact that people that clueless and directionless are in charge of our football and we somehow still manage to win things is just incredible.

My hope is that someone somewhere with the power to change something will read this and have a Eureka moment.

^^
Brilliant analysis. I buy into your idea of scrapping the "promotion/relegation" system int he NPL, but you'd be shocked to find out that a majority of Nigerian sports journalists, and even fans, would be vehemently opposed to this idea. After all, everything in our football has to be closely modeled after the English way of organization.

Fine analysis. I grieve every weekend seeing Lagos without a premier league club.

CFCfan:
^^
Brilliant analysis. I buy into your idea of scrapping the "promotion/relegation" system int he NPL, but you'd be shocked to find out that a majority of Nigerian sports journalists, and even fans, would be vehemently opposed to this idea. After all, everything in our football has to be closely modeled after the English way of organization.

The English premier league can afford to have yearly promotions and relegations which are. Immensely expensive and wasteful because it has the world's largest football broadcast rights figure (more than £1bn+) which is paid by Sky and BT. To put that in perspective, that is a little less than the annual budget of Lagos State. For a football league.
So obviously when they have this kind of money to play with, they can do all sorts of things to emphasise its "excitement factor". The league itself is nothing more than a huge PR and marketing machine which spends huge amounts of money to portray itself as the "Best League in the World" when really it is an above average league (football wise) with up to 13 teams of 20 having no ambition of doing anything more than just staying up every year. The entire focus of the EPL is money and backstage horse trading which is what most Nigerians carrying Manchester United and Chelsea on their head can't see. That league even introduced "parachute payments" for clubs relegated from it to avoid going bankrupt after spending unsustainably to remain in the BPL.
To put it in plain English, the BPL is a BUBBLE. A hyperinflated, ridiculous bubble economy where average ability receives compensation far in excess of its true worth - a league where Adam Lallana costs more than Mario Balotelli. And it is a bubble which is starting to burst. Already, fans are complaining about ticket prices. A general stand season ticket to watch Arsenal now costs roughly £1200 (about N310,000) which is the average monthly wage in some cities in the North of England. How can someone work for a whole month of the year to pay for a football ticket? The foreign TV deals which bring in so much revenue to Sky which enables them inflate the league economy further with absurd broadcast deals are now facing severe competition from the spanish Liga and German Bundesliga. In 4 or 5 years time the bubble will start to burst proper and you will know this is happening when the bigger clubs like Manchester United start calling for individual tv bargaining instead of the collective bargaining they have today. It will have become impossible to sustain the current hype-fuelled funding of the league and then water will start to find its level.

My point is that in no way should we be using the English league system as a template for our own. Even if Dangote drinks some strong shekpe and decides to sign a $2bn sponsorship deal with our NPFL, we will only end up being a short lived bubble which will burst and take our football back 15 years, or at best we will be like the South African PSL - a ghost league with empty stadiums and no fans which has only 3 or 4 'real' clubs and which depends entirely on corporate handouts in a fragile economy. Neither situation is befitting of Africa's largest economy.

^^
To further put it in perspective, the £1bn tv deal is more than twice the annual budget of Enugu State
Believe it or not, Ashley Young earns more money than Marco Reus; Luke Shaw cost more than one of Real Madrid's left-backs! The EPL is truly a bubble.

CFCfan:
^^
To further put it in perspective, the £1bn tv deal is more than twice the annual budget of Enugu State
Believe it or not, Ashley Young earns more money than Marco Reus; Luke Shaw cost more than one of Real Madrid's left-backs! The EPL is truly a bubble.

This is where it can become a bad thing to be too successful. This is why I insist that the American model is more sustainable (league franchise clubs, salary caps etc). I would also have mooted the German model but the drawback with it is that it allows for one single club to dominate the entire league (Bayern Munich) which makes it boring. What do you suggest?

NIGERIALOLoCOM:
Fine analysis. I grieve every weekend seeing Lagos without a premier league club.

Can you imagine? Imagine Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Washington DC, Buenos Aires, London, Paris, Johannesburg, Accra, Abdijan, Harare, Auckland, Sydney or any other major world city without a top division football club. Why must it be Nigeria's case that must always have K-leg?

Choi bro, I throw salute give you. Imma share this link with Club media officers and journalists/stakeholders to contribute in. Good one!!!

rickkid:

This is where it can become a bad thing to be too successful. This is why I insist that the American model is more sustainable (league franchise clubs, salary caps etc). I would also have mooted the German model but the drawback with it is that it allows for one single club to dominate the entire league (Bayern Munich) which makes it boring. What do you suggest?

I'd definitely go for the American model

Well done. I love it.

Not bad at all.

@ dazyork.... Can u state a full analysis of how we can have a good sustainable league in the country. Pls submit full details and clear analyis of how we can transform the league in a standard one not forgetting the future.

@ dazyork.... Can u state a full analysis of how we can have a good sustainable league in the country. Pls submit full details and clear analyis of how we can transform the league in a standard one not forgetting the future and how clubs should operate, I guess we can learn from it.

@ dazyork....... Also state clearly how the clubs won't run at loss and how they can have a reasonable fanbase even at away matches. Dont forget to state all the expenses of the club such as transportation etc. So also, how can clubs who play in CAF champions league have their fan cheering for them when playing away? More and more of this is what I and others expect.

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