The NPFL night matches issue

By Mansur Abubakar @mansur_112

The declaration last week by the chairman of the League Management Company, Shehu Dikko that the Nigeria Professional football will soon be witnessing night matches has attracted a lot of reactions from the game’s ardent followers from across the country.

Some say even though the LMC has made giant strides in the top flight this season, the Glo Premier League is still a long way from such an innovation while others argue it’s something that could be done with little adjustments here and there, let's analys the issue.

The revolutionary idea of a night football game started with a group of students who had played on British Mansfield University’s first football team in 1891 who, eager to showcase their new sport, came up with the idea of playing a game in front of the crowds at the Great Mansfield Fair using the electric light which was invented just 13 years earlier by Thomas A. Edison.

Which shows that though electricity was just 13 years old at the time, Mansfield had an abundance of it that those students could contemplate such a venture in comparison to Nigeria which is yet to get it right ‘electricitically’ in 101 years of existence as a nation.

Going round most of the stadia across the country, it is glaring to see that the most basic element for such a journey, the floodlights are either nonexistent, not numerically enough or are in a terrible state due to years of neglect, talk less of issues regarding powering the grounds.

Now, compare that to what many describe as one of the wonders of modern Europe, the ‘Allianz Arena’ (Bayern Munich stadium) which is the most lighted in the world with over 13 thousand fluorescent lights and with the capacity to change from colours blue, red and white depending on the occasion.

The second issue is that of security, even the most developed countries which has some of the best policing policies and prepares well ahead before night matches are played complain of a surge in crime and thuggish behaviours during those night games.

Your guess is as good as mine regarding how well our police and other security personnel would be able to handle a new phenomenon like this in which there hasn’t been any prior training seeing how some of them perform during ‘daytime’ matches.

For anybody that was present, the Eagles against Chad game at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna during an African Cup of Nations qualifier was a testament to how incapable we are to provide adequate security at grounds, if such laxity can be seen when the country’s national team is playing it won’t be hard to imagine what would happen in the case of ‘fans bad behaviour’ during an NPFL game at night.

Lastly, the league is witnessing a mammoth turn out of fans to watch matches in stadiums like never before which proves the top flight is in an upward spiral but for example how many of the over 8000 fans that turned up for Sunshine stars against Kano Pillars at the township stadium in Akure on 25th June, would have been willing to attend the game at 8.45pm.

The truth is, a situation whereby you are wondering how safe you’ll be and how long it will take to get to the stadium and return (some states have terrible traffic especially in the evenings) will surely put even the most loyal NPFL followers off.

In essence, a huge step like playing night matches shouldn’t be rushed but to be carefully planned on the long term by the LMC thereby concentrating on other short terms achievable objectives in the pursuit of a world class league.

Seconded