THE DREAM: A Truly Market-Focused League

After close to a century of amateur football in Nigeria and now decades of semi-professionalization of the game in the country, it is time to examine if Nigeria can turn the page to a truly professional top-tier league. This may seem so far fetched when one considers the current empty stadia during top level club competition in the country. Yet, just 40 years ago the local stadia were filled to the brim during local football matches. It all changed when television was privatized and televised foreign football took control. But let us dream that it could now be revised. 

If it could, what would such a league look like? That is what this piece dreams.

The Current Status of League Football

Professional Football in Nigeria with no spectators!

Football in empty stadia dominates what is 'allegedly' premier league football in Nigeria today. It is, in reality, a disaster. No fans, top level talent leaving in droves, young talents preferring to play academy football instead of in the professional local league, no broadcast media coverage, unpaid labor, allegedly 'fixed' match results, and several other ills. 

Many believe club football is dead in Nigeria. 

Yet, 40 years ago, football was at its zenith in the country. That was before the local media environment changed and foreign plus private interests took over. In came foreign televised football to bury local interest in Nigeria's club football. The rest is now history.

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Today, football is DEAD locally. There are still talents that can be found but it is taking finding a needle in a haystack to find such talent because many of such talents are now sweating somewhere in other parts of Africa, Asia, or Europe.

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Today, football is DEAD locally. There are still talents that can be found but it is taking finding a needle in a haystack to find such talent because many of such talents are now sweating somewhere in other parts of Africa, Asia, or Europe.

But to despair is to ignore the fading silver lining in Nigeria's football that holds the key to reviving the local game. There remains hope. What is missing is conviction of local football's potential. 

But how would it really work?

Most Likely Route to Professionalization & the Wedge of State Resistance

There is hope. We have seen the sudden explosion of the movie industry in Nigeria and the meteoric rise of the music industry. Those two industries had been dominated by foreign interests, just like football, until recent decades. For movies, Nigerians had fallen in love with American, then Indian and Mexican movies. For music, it was a long love with American music. Yet, local movies and music rose from ashes to dominate those foreign tropes in today's Nigeria. Could football be next? 

Perhaps, the answer is yes. But how?

Sports Minister Sunday Dare

The success of the movie and music industry could be attributed to private interest ingenuity and the inability and disinterest of the state in resisting. For football, it is exactly the opposite. The state's interest in the current football decay is entrenched. It is a pipeline for siphoning funds and for compensating underlings. Without football, the political strongmen would have to invent new outlets for compensation and their willingness to create new avenues for such compensation may not be easily forthcoming.

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The success of the movie and music industry could be attributed to private interest ingenuity and the inability and disinterest of the state in resisting. For football, it is exactly the opposite. The state's interest in the current football decay is entrenched. It is a pipeline for siphoning funds and for compensating underlings. 

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Thus, the state is more likely to institute a battle against change. It is a battle that will be difficult for private interests to overcome. Weirdly, it is also a battle in which the state and its underlings are likely to co-opt FIFA on the side of resistance. 

But how? 

FIFA's edict that only the FA can manage football will be a source for sustaining resistance. Unlike the movie and music industry, that FA's sole control of this market (sanctioned by FIFA) will be the bully whip for sustaining resistance. The FA administrators, propped up by state funds, will be unable to contemplate a future without state funds. Instead, they will salivate for state funds and resist a change that can create a better future for Nigeria's football.

But let us assume that Nigeria's football becomes fortuitous. Just an assumption. Somehow, it overcomes the formidable gang of resistors that include the state. 

What would the future, then, resemble?

A Future and a Dream

It will bring Nigeria's football to true professionalism. It will no longer be professionalism defined only by full time football labor sans requisite trappings. Instead, it will be defined by availability of facilities, consistent sources of private revenue, media coverage, and growth of fans and market across the globe. These may sound like a pipe dream that is so far fetched based on today's Nigerian local football. But yet, it is within reach if only the entrenched state-supported football can be overthrown and ditched. We have seen the private sector revive the movie and music industry. Why can't football be next? The football industry is not impossible to revive if the ingenuity of Nigeria's private sector is allowed to force its way through the entrenched docility of the state and its control of Nigeria's football.

A critical piece of the puzzle is revenue earning. Thus, I focus attention solely on that piece. New media provide critical answers. Currently, unable to attract huge media rights, Nigeria's football is at the precipice of disaster. However, new media and precisely streaming technology provides a promise. Recently, the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL) has promised something similar but its actual implementation will define the league's seriousness and inventiveness.

An NPFL-TV that can be watched on-the-go

An NPFL-TV, based on live streaming of games, provides great promise. Although, fan interest is low at the moment and stadia are empty, streaming live games is likely to birth new interest in a league that was hugely attractive to Nigerian spectators just over two decades ago. But a full slate of NPFL-TV should not be solely about live games. It should provide diverse programming to attract not only diehard football fans but interests of other consumers as well. Thus, a relationship between Nollywood and the Nigerian music industry should be built to include both movies and music as part of the programming. It could be programming where football stars cross-over to movies and music among other arrangements that may include live music at games. Beyond this should be additional behind the scenes and off-field programmings developed around football players and administrators. These are ways to create and develop new stars and heroes that eventually will lead fans to the live games. 

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..... a full slate of NPFL-TV should not be solely about live games. It should provide diverse programming to attract not only diehard football fans but interests of other consumers as well. Thus, a relationship between Nollywood and the Nigerian music industry should be built to include both movies and music as part of the programming.

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Nollywood's presence should be a plus

But critical to the success of the above is to edict a league that is truly made of private and for-profit clubs. Do away with state-sponsored clubs and their hangers-on. State-sponsored clubs can be fully privatized and then admitted but not government-financed clubs. This way, clubs are fully motivated to create sources of revenue instead of waiting for state handouts. This would encourage creativity and the non-creative clubs should be left to wither and disappear.

... But Then?

Is this just a dream? Is it possible? Can the entrenched state interests and those who profit from those interests yield? Answers to those question will determine the success of Nigeria's football going into the future. If entrenched state interests can be successfully dislodged, it may well lead Nigerian football to a successful future of true professionalization of football. 

Until then, it is just a dream.