It's a pity that Nigerians are spending a fortune to watch the English premier league and most local Tv stations are more interested in investing in it than any other sport. Guys, it used to be like this with our local league. How many French men, Germans, scottish etc watch that premier league we kill ourselves over?


My uncle[name witheld] told me that there was a time he tried investing in our league and see if we can repackage it and make it worthwhile but most clubs in Nigeria will not cooperate. Clubs like Gombe united can never be won at home even if they are playing with Arsenal FC. It's either you play draw with them or you allow them win you at home.

I need suggestions on what we can do to resurrect our league, get adequate financing from the marketing that can uplift the standards and forestall match fixing and finally sell it to other Africans like Nollywood. If we make our local league look more sexy and get local viewership , other neighboring African countries will start subscribing and that will help our local soccer on the international level or should we forget our league and pay tribute to English premiership forever when we have the home population and other resources to uplift our own?

I am sick and tired of arm chair critics that will soon come here to bad mouth our league. Please, if you must contribute something worthwhile, let it be some idea on how to move forward or try some optimism for once as a patriotic Nigerian.

Hi,
I share your concern. Football is an industry that is giving employment to millions all over the globe. Its not just the players or their coaches. There are many other enterprises that grow on football and the more developed the game is, the more these industries grow.
Money is crucial in all of this but before we even look at pumping money, we have to first even look at those that are presently responsible for managing this product (football) that we want to sell.
Your uncle's failed attempt is a claassic case in point. Some of these people managing these clubs need a total re-education. Football needs money and so its not all about the skills on the pitch. There is need to involve market skills as well. How can what you have be exchanged for what its really worth?
The game needs an influx of people who are a hybrid, a cross between football enthusiast and private enterpreneur.
Selling football is all about packaging, presentation and exposure. The corporate world needs outlets to communicate with potential markets and football can provide that. If you cant get people to the stadium to watch matches (and be advertised to), then take the matches, well packaged, to them.
We have corporate bodies sponsoring all kinds of sports (and especially football) shows - some of them empty except for the easily stolen premiership news - because they know people connect with sports.
Let our local league begin to take up airtime as much as the foreign leagues are doing and people will not even know when they start to recognise and follow the clubs and the players. Its one of the ways people enter a competition. Take up as much shelf space or even more, than the competition and you will begin to get noticed.
I can go on and on but my fingers are really getting tired and I am a bit hungry so maybe I will continue some other time.
But really we cannot continue to kill this goose that can lay so many golden eggs simply because of a duck in another man's pool.
Cheers all.
PS. Enyimba is squaring up against Al Ahly. Do they stand a chance?

Enyimba lost 1-0 to Al Ahly and it was painful although they played very well.

The game needs an influx of people who are a hybrid, a cross between football enthusiast and private enterpreneur.
Selling football is all about packaging, presentation and exposure. The corporate world needs outlets to communicate with potential markets and football can provide that. If you can't get people to the stadium to watch matches (and be advertised to), then take the matches, well packaged, to them.
We have corporate bodies sponsoring all kinds of sports (and especially football) shows - some of them empty except for the easily stolen premiership news - because they know people connect with sports.
Let our local league begin to take up airtime as much as the foreign leagues are doing and people will not even know when they start to recognise and follow the clubs and the players. Its one of the ways people enter a competition. Take up as much shelf space or even more, than the competition and you will begin to get noticed.

I love the bolded part. Funny thing is that it used to be that way in Naija. I remember anytime Iwuanyanwu/spartans playing at home in Owerri with enugu Rangers, the whole city will be agog with fans, hooligans etc blocking the streets to cheer the home team because Rangers used to be very big then. What happened to the days Abiola babes?/IICC shooting stars/Lobi stars etc?. The fans remain the same but it is our game that is not changing to entice them. If you know the population of Nigerian fans that live and eat the English premiership, you'll understand we are giving away a free enterprise to the white man. I think the corporate bodies and some individual investors are still interested but NFF is a big problem. It cannot survive independently irrespective of how much you pump in unless the government is ready to work with you to make it straight. All we need is a president that loves sports, ready to straighten the irregularities by cleaning up the Nigerian football federation and before 5 years, we will get home fans to cheer our local league again. If Nigerians can drift from their interest in Italian seria A to the English premiership, there is still hope they can dump the premiership for our league.

yes it used to be like that in those days. So what's changed? I f you ask me, I would still bring it back to packaging and ability to sell. No matter how good your product is, if you cannot package it well, give it a good image that will attract 'buyers', then its either you won't be able to sell it or you get a pittance for it.

Millions of Nigerians spent their hard earned money to pay for DSTV because of the English league especially. They all spend valuable time watching not just the matches but even programmes and shows about the matches.

Now is it that the English play better football? If you look at the statistics, a good number of the payers that fans follow are not even English. It only happens that they play in the English league. Take away these stars and the English league is just a shell - as it actually was in the past. More than anything, players of class and with accompanying popularity are the essential ingredients of a successful league.

They attract the crowd, make them happy by their performance and keep them where the advertisers want them: either in front of their TV sets or on the seats in the stadiums.

Let me give a scenario: what do you think would be the effect of lets say El Kanemi warriors (despite not being in the premier league) acquiring Wayne Rooney on attendance at their stadium? or more realistically, lets say Kano Pillars signs Martins, Mikel and Osaze? I dare say that there will be considerable change in interest in Kano pillars matches, home or away.

But how did these chaps get so popular? Mikel and Martins started their games here but did not cause the kind of stir their return would cause.

Publicity. Hype. Packaging. That's how. And that's something they have mastered in the English premier league. Bombard people constantly with something over the media and after a while they sub consciously begin to accept it. If all TV and Radio stations here have two hours per day dedicated to football reports and all they sing is how interesting yesterday's matches were and how exciting next week's matches will be and then go on to actually cover these matches and present them with well done commentary, people will begin to spare some time for our league.

But right now, what we have happens as one of two things. 1. Either a medium does not take football reporting seriously or 2. They report it but do not cover it. What's the difference here? You tell me today in your newspaper or TV station that Enyimba will play Heartland and the it will be a titanic clash and you give me all the reasons why it will be interesting. And that's it. The D-day comes and I can not find anywhere where the so-called 'titanic clash' is being broadcast. It breeds apathy.

But if you prick my interest and then go ahead to show me the match, during the course of the match I will be following it to see how all the ingredients you had mentioned in the prelude to the match are actually going to affect the outcome. That is what sells the premiership above everything else. They prep you before a match - they give you history, statistics, situation reports - and then show you the match. You want to see the outcome. Many of our sports casters and commentators can not, I bet you, tell who was the highest goal scorer last season in the globacom premier league. In the end, when they have to give you a report, it sounds so vague that only a morron can be excited by it.

So I still say that publicity, hype and packaging will go a long way to improve interest in our league. Before I forget, these corporate advertisers have people, agencies working out the mathematics of where best they will put their money to get the maximum value. The monitor the media to know what''s selling with the audiences and what's not, they know what's taking up airtime and what's not. They also monitor the societal pulse: what do people want to spend their time doing and where will they be so that they can take their messages to them.

They know people are not in stadiums watching matches. They know people are either not watching the league or cannot watch it because it is not even broadcast. So why the hell should they shove their money football's way? And as long as this money isn't there, we can't talk about bringing in the needed variety and class of players that would spark a renaissance in our football (except if those chaps with all those billions bidding for NewCastle change their minds and send the money our way).

Cheers!

I'm not one of those who believe that eating local rice is an evidence of patriotism but again it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to bring the local rice up to the standard of what we would much rather be ingesting.

Having said that, there's this Nigerian football website I created some months back as part of my efforts to add some color to the Nigerian football scene. The add is www.football.com.ng.

Thing is we have now added a blog section designed to allow interested individuals to be able to air their personal opinions, thoughts, suggestions etc on the site. Naturally of course, all the categories pertain to Nigerian football.

I believe strongly that with all of us pulling in one direction, we can make Nigerian football a bit more attractive than it is today, and that is a good starting point as any for now.

All interested individuals are hereby invited to send an email indicating their interest to blog@football.com.ng. We also welcome suggestions on new categories from interested bloggers.

Further instructions on how to gain access and update the blog will be provided to competent bloggers.

We are looking forward to hear from you and as many who believe that Nigerian football can be developed beyond its present state as possible.

The answer is simple.
let the right people run the game.People with true love for football,not cash and carry administrator.
Then things will naturally fall in place.

The premiership that has become a global phenomenon is what it is today due to good if not excellent management,proper branding/marketing.
All these attract viewers from all over the world.
As long as the Ogunjobis and the Lulus of this world continue to run our football,we will see no forward progress.

Tony ikhazobor (late) was NFA chairman in the 80.That was one of the reasons we could boast of a good league.
No matter how professional we make it,until right pegs are placed in the right holes,Nigerians will continue to spend theit hard-earned dough on tforeign leagues.