what happened?? cultism destroyed bendel insurance that i can attest to...

ever811:
are you serious? the crowd was amazing, they had enough to eat and go to the stadium then...now that one can hardly see food chop...when common tomatoes is more expensive than a barrel of crude oil.. who wan carry him small money pay transport,buy ticket to watch football?

Oga Buhari, we thank you oh.

DIKEnaWAR:
Before we loved the EPL more than the English people.

.....before we forgot that charity begins at HOME.

onuleo:
what went wrong?

errrm dat is fa cup final not a league match bro rangers v insurance @ national stadium surulere crowds luvd d fa cup lyk mad den bloggers pls try and verify b4 posting biko

Whenever i can i try to watch NFPL on tv. I like the action-packed nature of the game but there is very little flair or star quality. The difference is stark when you flip the channel to South African League.

Govt needs to realize that a population of 100 million football crazy and fun-loving people is a potential source of diversification for the economy. Ideally in cities like Lagos, Enugu, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, Benin, Aba, etc where you have millions of residents, a well organized league should be able to pull at least 25, 000 people per game. Manchester has only 2.5 million people, London is about as populated as Lagos but has at least 5 Premier league teams vying for attention with huge followership, not to mention the championship and 1st division teams there. What am i saying? With a little substantial investment in star quality, Nigerian clubs can build huge fanbases.

So to get started there is need for the government to step in and fund the signing of certain players. People like Obafemi Martins, Osaze and co should be govt-paid and given endorsement deals to come back home and play here. All good Nigerian players playing in poor european leagues such as the Dutch league, Belgian league or so should be paid salaries that would match whatever they are getting there, to lure them home. Then home-based players should be propped up such that if you are not playing in the big 5 leagues of Europe, you must be playing in the Nigerian league, or you can forget about the national team.

From there private investors may be lured to take over. You have to spend money to make money but the money is surely there to be made.

First of all the OP should correct himself,this is the 1978 challenge cup final between Enugu Rangers and Bendel Insurance of Benin.

It was not a league match.

Bendel Insurance made up of unknown players like captain Felix Agbonifo,David Adiele,Henry Ogboe, Kadiri Ikhana,Leotis Boateng, and Peter Eghareva came out of nowhere to beat Enugu Rangers made up of national players like Emma Okala,Christian Chukwu,Christian Madu and Alloy Atuegbu.
Bendel Insurance won this match at the National stadium at Surulere 3 -0 with two goals from Henry Ogboe and one goal from Peter Eghareva.
Ironically Insurance also defeated IICC shooting stars 2-0.in the semi finals.
Rangers and Shooting stars were the biggest teams in Nigeria then and after beating the two teams to win the challenge cup most Insurance players became stars and became national team players.
Ikhana,Agbonifo, Adiele,Ogboe and Boateng and Eghareva went on to have careers in the National team and some of them were part of the 1980 AFCON winning team.

Jesu

[quote author=SmartyPants post=52691474]Whenever i can i try to watch NFPL on tv. I like the action-packed nature of the game but there is very little flair or star quality. The difference is stark when you flip the channel to South African League.

Govt needs to realize that a population of 100 million football crazy and fun-loving people is a potential source of diversification for the economy. Ideally in cities like Lagos, Enugu, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, Benin, Aba, etc where you have millions of residents, a well organized league should be able to pull at least 25, 000 people per game. Manchester has only 2.5 million people, London is about as populated as Lagos but has at least 5 Premier league teams vying for attention with huge followership, not to mention the championship and 1st division teams there. What am i saying? With a little substantial investment in star quality, Nigerian clubs can build huge fanbases.

You are brilliant!