Recently, the Nigeria Football Association change its name to Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) against the expectations of the numerous soccer stakeholders in the country.
Perhaps, the board of the NFA or football authorities may have cogent reasons to give avid soccer fan for the new name.
The question is do such change actually matter as to improving the standard of the Nigerian Football League or is it the name that would help develop our soccer such that it is near European standard or is it just a mere nomenclature or it was done for political and economic reasons? what good reasons actually informed the change? Or will it be such that it will help the Federation to be more alive to its responsibility or will the name help the football authorities or NFA board to perform its functions in other that soccer retain its lost glory in Nigeria?
Again, will the so called reason help improve on the welfare of players concerning good sign-on fees, allowances, match bonuses and satisfactory monthly salaries or will it help sponsor clubsides during the coming 2008/2009 football season?
Aside from that, will the change of name influence companies to sponsor the league better so there can be progress thus improve on the quality and standard?
More importantly, will the change of name stop corruption and bring about sanity at the level of the NFA? In essence, will the soccer authorities in the so called NFA respect the supposedly noble football governing body and stop cutting corners?
Above all, will the new name usher in a new development that would bring about increase in the followership of the Nigeria league the way it was in 1970s and 1980s so that the different stadia are usually filled to capacity during league matches?
Is it such that clubs can now be sponsored by companies courtesy the NFA or they will now relay on an astronomical increase in gate-takings as against the statuesquo.
There are however other endless questions that can be asked from the recent action by the Nigerian football authorities. The pathetic issue in the whole affairs is that they know what to do but they bluntly refused to do them so that the football game in Nigeria can be better than what it is now. The solution to the many problems of Nigerian football is certainly not in the changing of name rather it is whether chieftains of the National Sports Commission (NSC) and the NFA board members would change their attitude, be honest in terms of monetary allocation and other such finance menat for football, use it to develop the game.
Also, it is whether the NSC and NFA are focused enough to abide with the Oyuki-Obaseki’s Nigeria Football League reforms.
The two bodies should be able to study the reforms critically and begin the implementation as soon as the 2008/2009 football season kicks off.
For instance, nothing stops the NSC and NFA from influencing companies to sponsor clubsides by increasing the amount for clubs to N20 million as against the N10 million that were given to clubs courtesy Chief Oyuki Obaseki led NFL.
The two bodies (NSC and NFA) can persuade clubsides to pay players of the Premier League N200, 000 or N150, 000 monthly aside allowances, bonuses and sign-on-fees in accordance with the Obaseki’s reforms. The management of the lower divisions can also be requested to pay their players N100, 000 and other cadres N50, 000 as monthly salaries or there should be conditions henceforth that players can negotiate on their own with clubs to pay them more handsome amount.
They should be able to find lasting solutions to the problems of followership of the league that has educed drastically.
In other words, they (NSC and NFA) should come up with such practical solutions that will help promote and encourage followership so that the number of spectators that watch league matches in the different stadia will increase satisfactorily in the forth-coming football season.
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