‘Boardroom Points Gone for Good from Our League’
The Glo Premier League season 2014/2015 ended last Sunday with Enyimba FC of Aba winning its seventh title in the topflight of Nigerian club football. Even before the Aba Billionaires appeared on the Teslim Balogun Stadium turf in Lagos for its last game
A review of the just ended season…
I feel very good that the Glo Premier League has ended on a very positive note. We are happy that everybody is talking positively about it. The feedback we are getting from every stakeholder is that the league is no longer won via boardroom points. The winning team must earn victory on the pitch. We are equally happy that all the stakeholders like sponsors, teams, fans are all working towards one direction. That really made it easy for us at the LMC to be able to drive the project to a resounding success because of oneness of purpose that we all share.
I want to say that the teams at the top of the league reflect the quality of what these teams brought to the league at the beginning. Statistics of the season clearly showed that champions Enyimba with 70 points had the best defence, conceding just 27 goals all through the season while runners-up, Warri Wolves with 62 goals was the highest scoring side. Trouble free league season… Out of the 380 matches played we only had issues in just two games that is the game between FC Taraba and Nasarawa and the match involving Sunshine Stars and Lobi Stars. These were the only matches that we can say yes there were real issues. And of course, both teams were sanctioned: Sunshine was banished to Lagos when Nasarawa was sent to Kaduna.
In the other matches were some teams refused to play, there is certainly no case as the rule is very clear on such behaviour. The rules had to be applied appropriately to save the league from being dragged into disrepute. These were no security breaches to warrant a club refusing to continue a game. On the overall, 2014/2015 was a good season for clubs, sponsors and the LMC. Decent organization… Another positive note that the smooth organisation of this edition has brought is that potential sponsors are beginning to come forward to ask questions on how they can partner league teams. This is a clear departure from the past when it was the clubs that go cap in hand, begging sponsors.
Governments that own most of the teams in the League are taking note of what we are doing here at LMC. They are asking what to do to make the teams better, how to strengthen existing sporting infrastructure. Take for instance, Abia State Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu has asked us what can be done to improve Enyimba FC ahead of their continental campaign next season. If everybody is doing this to improve teams in the league, we can say with all certainty that our club football will have no match in the continent. As for scoring the league pass mark, we leave that to others to do not us but we know we have done enough to deserve A+ grade. When we look back to where we are coming from and where we are now, we can beat our chest that we have done well. We are not saying we have attained the summit yet but we have been able to set a standard that is taking our club football to higher glory. Officiating … On officiating, the referees were very outstanding this season although there were few lapses. Even by global standards, some of these lapses happen. Officiating has improved and credit for this goes to all of us concerned with administering the league. The LMC took it upon itself to assist the NFF Referees Committee in retraining some of the referees here and overseas. We also tried to improve the welfare of the referees by increasing their honorarium. We also ensured that they are paid directly and promptly. We paid for their hotel as at when due without the previous practice of relying on the home team to do so. We try to ensure minimum contacts between the home teams and match officials to prevent situations of their being influenced. Security provision for the referees was also a top priority this term. This perhaps was responsible for some home teams cheering an away team playing better football as the match officials gave them a level playing environment to play. The fans are not stupid. They know when a referee is not been fair. It was little surprising that there were several away victorious this season. Not one of the away victories had problems. In some of the games that there were problems, it was not the problem of the referee. In the Taraba versus Nasarawa for instance, the fans came to the stadium with a mind set. That same referee officiated the same game last season and it ended in a draw. It was their belief that they were not going to win with this particular referee in-charge of the match. They forgot that the same referee was in-charge when they were leading IfeanyiUbah 3-1 before wasting the advantage they had to end the game 3-all. Because the fans came to the game with such mind set, they were ready for trouble.
In the Sunshine/Lobi, the fans felt that since the referees were from Bauchi where their rival Wikki comes from he was going to work against them in favour of the team from his home state. The referees were fair in their officiating and where they erred, we made recommendation to the NFF Referees Committee and they were adequately punished. I want to say here that several referees who messed up were dropped to the lower league and only reappointed when they shaped up for the business of the elite league.
Dikko agreed that it was wrong to have someone with interests in one of the clubs to chair the Organising and Disciplinary Committee of the NFF. He was specifically referring to the Sharks FC versus Nasarawa case. “But Chris Green who was a former chairman and secretary of Sharks excused himself from the meeting when the matter came up. As a lawyer Green did the right thing by stepping aside. We are going to see how to prevent such next season.
Club and indebtedness to players…
Clubs are not supposed to owe their players and officials. There are sanctions for such defaults. Even CAF and FIFA have legislated against such. It is however a global issue. Even in Europe with flourishing leagues there are few instances of clubs owing their players. It is not only a Nigeria issue.
At the beginning of the season, we asked for Bank Performance Guarrantee certificates from clubs. The reason for this was because we (LMC) wanted to ensure that there was money to offset debts. But the truth is that we cannot run away from the reality of the moment. Most of the state governments that own these clubs were owing their workforce several months of unpaid wages. Even as at the time the season started, most of these states were neck deep in election matters and so football matter was secondary to them. We threatened the clubs with sanctions including six-point deduction from each of the defaulting clubs. But at the end of the day, we found ourselves in discussion with the governors of the states that owned these clubs. They promised to offset the debts. Don’t also forget that these states had to go to the federal government to get bailout to pay their civil servants. We agreed on a way out. Both Warri Wolves and El kanemi complied before we invoked the rule on point deduction on them. It was the same with Sharks and Dolphins. You see, we need to be careful here on how we handle matters like these because the bulk of the teams in the league are owned by state governments. If we come down heavily on these clubs, we are going to be compromising the integrity of the league as we may not have sufficient teams to play it because of debts. Secondly, if we deduct the points, it is punishment for the players who struggled through sweat and blood to earn these points. And if they are relegated, they may not find the lower league attractive to command the kind of respect they had in the premier league.
To save the situation, we in LMC decided that any club owing its players will not be paid whatever entitlement they deserve from us. We agree to use the money accruing to such clubs to pay their players. Secondly, we ruled that defaulting clubs would not be allowed to sign new players until debts to players cleared. In the same way, we ruled that any player sold by such a team, money from the deal would be used to pay debts. They were going to start the new season with six points deduction. With these threats hanging on clubs, most of them have started sorting these debts while others are not owing. Do you even know that a player can terminate his contract to a team with 14 days notice and become a free agent? When one or two players attempted to invoke that clause in their contracts, they got part of what they were being owed before the expiration of the contract. It is unfortunate that most of our players sleep on their rights and in some cases, are too dumb or stingy to pay three percent to a manager to manage their affairs. A player has no business negotiating his contract. His business is to play football and allow his manager to handle the business of his contract. FIFA has even made it simple now that anybody can be a player’s manager. So long as you have not been convicted, you can act as intermediary between a player and his club.