By Paul Bassey
I have been reliably informed that the Nigeria Football Federation has concluded arrangements to hold a pre-season Match Commissioners seminar in Abuja this week.

What this tells me is that the March 9 kick off date of the Premier league may be a reality after all.

Just last week, some notable and informed football administrators were mandated to go take a look at some stadiums begging for approval before the commencement of the league.

There has been one beehive of activity after another as all parties concerned have been involved in meetings and dialogues to guarantee the kick off that has come months too late.

Coming on the heels of government’s promise to release some grants to the Management Committee to start the league, and in an effort to guarantee a hitch free kick off, the House of Representatives Committee on sports waded in to broker peace by inviting ousted Chairman Chief Rumson Baribote and the NFF leadership to a dialogue that I gathered did not really go as planned.

Despite the muscular efforts by the Honorable Minister of Sports and Chairman, National Sports Commission Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi to resolve the issue, selfish considerations, blackmail, merchantilistic and anti patriotic tendencies have become the bane of such efforts.

That not withstanding, as earlier argued, my confidence rises by the day, my belief is strengthened that the league is due for a take off at last.

Immediately after the Nations Cup, there was this sudden belief in the domestic league, one that drew some blanks when it was reported that due to the non commencement of the league no home based star was likely to get a call up by Stephen Keshi for the March World Cup date.

How do you invite players who have been inactive for five months or more?

Sadly, the Nigeria league may be the only one in the whole world that is yet to kick off its current season. Those with the opinion that this season could be scrapped are humbled  by the need to produce representatives for continental competitions next season.

Otherwise put, to scrap the league means to lose a whole year in the history of our football both locally and in the continent. I will not mind the above stated position if there was any guarantee that our league will be better off for it. As it stands the kick off of the league will be a welcome development in the short term. But what happens after the 200 or so million naira promised by the National Sports Commission runs out? By my estimation one match is expected to cost about three hundred thousand naira, (match Commissioners and referees indemnities alone) multiplied by the number of matches not including administrative costs.

A popular football parlance says a nations  national team is as good as its league, a saying that has never applied here due to our tradition of depending on wholesale on foreign based stars. Happily, the Nations Cup success has proven that stars do exist in the domestic league that can hold their own against the foreign armada, that is why there is greater emphasis now on the development and proper administration of the league.

This takes me back to the Match Commissioners seminar, a yearly ritual that has to evolve. Last year, the Linus Mba led Resource Persons went as far as setting questions and including practicals in the seminar that was meant to grade and classify the Commissioners. I want to believe that this year we will move a step further.

There is need to eliminate the state by state appointment of match commissioners , now that our league holds promises of a brighter future. I want to believe that from this season the NFF and the NPL will have the courage to appoint only those match commissioners that know what match commissioning is all about. Men and women with visible signs of livelihood. Honest, who will not faint at the sight of fifty thousand naira only to resurrect and turn the rules and regulations up side down!

I believe I can say the same thing about referees. Who will worry if we have only twenty qualified referees to run the league? It happens in the English Premiership. Let it happen here. We should start now to classify the referees and the match commissioners.

Match commissioners and referees appointment committees must learn to ignore calls for appointments based on states and number. If we must appoint referees from Abuja alone, so be it as long as they are competent. We should never yield to the claim that “……since the league started no referee has been appointed from one state or the other….”

March 9 is tomorrow. Good luck Nigeria.

See you next week.