The euphoria of a successful 2022/2023 league in Nigeria is still in the air especially in the ancient city of Aba, Abia State, where the pots are still boiling and football lovers clinking glasses of wine and champagne.
The People’s Elephant, Enyimba International Football Club defied all the odds to win a keenly contested Super 6 in Lagos earlier in the month.
Strategic partner to the Nigeria Premier Football League Ltd (NPFL), GTI Asset Management and Trust Limited last week officially confirmed that champions of the Championship Play-off, Enyimba, have received their N100million prize money from the company while the other five teams –Remo FC, Rivers United, Sunshine Stars of Akure, Insurance of Benin and Lobi Stars of Markudi – received N5 million each for qualifying and participating in the competition..
GTI had also announced a partnership deal worth N1 billion per annum with the Interim Management Committee (IMC) at the beginning of the season and the entire football firmament in Nigeria went haywire celebrating what many termed a breakthrough or dawn of a new era in football sponsorship in the Nigerian league.
But calm reflection may suggest this elation may be short lived going by the secrecy surrounding the contract details between GTI and WHO? NFF / ILMC/MINISTRY / NPFLL
The NFLL and even the past unceremoniously dispatched Nduka and Dikko’s League Management Committee had in the past negotiated and won sponsorship deals far more than the GTI offer.
The present Chief Operating Officer, COO, of the IMC, Davidson Owumi in 2014 secured a N3 billion sponsorship deal with telecommunications giant, MTN but it was truncated as a result of an ego war.
But Owumi, as at today, still parades the 2014 mouth-watering sponsorship breakthrough as the high point of his career as football administrator. That historical feat enjoys a prominent place in Owumi’s profile or Curriculum Vitae.
More recently, the defunct LMC had a Broadcast sponsorship deal with the South African satellite cable outfit, Supersports worth approximately $10 million (which is about N6 billion per annum today). So, celebrating a relatively N1 billion sponsorship of GTI is far off the mark except that the present league managers may be seen as more prudent than those forbears who allegedly feathered their personal nests at the detriment of the Nigerian football league.
They allegedly squandered all the monies and even the assets of the NFLL which included an expansive office building bought by the NFLL under the late Chief Oyuiki Obaseki from a loan taken from a now defunct bank. Those who came after Obaseki failed to service the loan until the bank, where one of the league sponsors was alleged to be a prominent stakeholder, took ownership of the edifice over the remaining N150 million balance of the loan.
Information from the grave vine also allegedly revealed that one of the directors of the LMC allegedly bought the house from the bank.
Given the immediate alleged financial handling of sponsorship money by LMC LTD ,the Hon Gbenga Elegbeleye-led IMC’s acclaimed prudent management of the resources at their disposal may be deserving of comparative review of pre-LMC, Obaseki and Owumi times and not behave like the lizard that jumped from a very high Iroko tree and thumps its chest in self adulation.
It is obvious that the Nigerian league could attract a far better offer than the N1 billion from GTI if they allowed for a level playing ground or extend their net to accommodate more and better sponsors.
The way it is now , given the secrecy surrounding the GTI and Owunmi’s IMC sponsorship agreement, their are already tongues wagging that a lot of water may have flown under the league hence the tight lips.
We can also add here that the IMC-GTI sponsorship deal is seeming to be lopsided in favour of IMC hence been tagged a contract that may be short lived. Or how do we explain all the few inhibiting clauses in the contract whereby the sponsor runs the league by paying the indemnities of match officials? Could it be a result of lack of trust in the IMC?
In a case of ‘he who plays the piper dictates the tune’, GTI issued a stern instruction when unveiling Enyimba as the league winner at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium, Onikan. The sponsor unabashedly spelt out what Enyimba should do or must not do with the N100 million prize of winning the 2022/2023 league.
According to GTI, half of the money must go into recruitment of players (N25 million) and renovation of the Aba stadium in conformity with CAF requirements (N25 million)
Suffice to say here that the GTI and perhaps the IMC are pretending to be utterly oblivious of the fact that the majority of the clubs in the Nigerian league are owned by the state governments run and kept for political propaganda rather than win laurels. It is therefore obvious that compliance with the GTI spending arrangement for Enyimba is dead on arrival.
Before the IMC begins throwing fire crackers and engaging in bonfire party to celebrate the success of the 2022/23 league, they must be reminded that they have just put only one leg in the turbulent river and how they navigate their way out is germane to chroniclers of events in Nigeria’s football constituency.
There is still a long road to travel after the league was adjudged the fourth best league in African under the late Obaseki. That was at a time when Enyimba broke the jinx of winning the CAF Champions League back-to-back in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
Today, the league has continued to churn out unmotivated teams in all the continental championships. Aside from Rivers United of Port Harcourt that managed to get into the Group Stage of the CAF Confederation Cup recently, all others are sent packing at the preliminary stages.
