The chief Executive officer of the League management company ,LMC,Honorable Nduka Irabor has declare that the Nigeria Professional Football League,NPFL needs the investment from cooperate Nigeria to be more attractive and reach the standards we will all be proud of.
This is coming on the trails of huge cooperate Nigeria investments in foreign sporting activities. He made this assertion at the symposium organised by the Lagos state chapter of the Sports writer Association of Nigeria ,Lagos SWAN, to mark this year Lagos SWAN week.
Irabor Affirmed that over 100 billion naira leaves the shores of the country on yearly basis from the purse of cooperate Nigeria sponsoring foreign sporting activities especially football.
"From our study with the central bank of Nigeria 100 billion naira goes out to sponsor foreign sporting activities especially football on yearly basis from cooperate Nigeria" .
But how can we make NPFL attractive to the "foreign investing" cooperate Nigeria? The astute administrator believe the NPFL is sufficiently attractive enough to attract investors and have a good return for their money but asked for their sense of pride in investing in a thing 'of own 'and then they can only invest in the league to make it more attractive and not abandoning it for foreign sporting activities.
"There are two ways to look at it,it's ours .
First of all , the sense of pride has to reign to make it more attractive we need the money.
As it is right now it's attractive enough. The days you say they don't come to see match is over.
We ve seen on a match day people thronging the stadium ,things have changed but we need to draw attention to it."
The journalist turned administrator also defined the role the media should play in other to make the league more attractive.
"what's important is that the media should let people see what is going on as it is ,don't exaggerate,inflate or blow up minor issues.
Some things are trivial that we tend to concentrate on,is it poor officiating? This things are not new to football it happen even at world cup stage sometimes they are human errors that we in the media makes it to look as if it determine the league itself, don't put people off,sure you have a role to play.
Finally,Irabor proposes the need for community ownership of clubs as this will get the people involved and also make the league more attractive
"I am not saying that the administrators should not look for a proper way to project their game but let this game get into the community.
if the people are involved, or are part of the club entity they will want to come out and see what they are doing" he concludes
