By Harry Iwuala

It didn’t come as much surprise the surreptitious attempts by some group to engineer confusion and derail the planned reform of the Nigeria Professional Football League which only recently emerged from years of the worst kind of self-inflicted disruption. As one who has extensive knowledge of the in-fighting that ruined the management of the league these past four years, the appointment of the 13-member Interim Management Committee was an insightful step towards resolving the league crisis.

I found myself agreeing with the Honourable Sports Minister and dropped my suspicion of his earlier motives for insisting on the sacking of the Chief Victor Rumson Baribote-led Board of the now defunct Nigeria Premier League (NPL) or is it Nigeria Football League (NFL) Limited Board.

While the membership of the committee seems unwieldy, the quality and pedigree of the persons can hardly be faulted. The significance of their resource capacity can be gleaned in the report published recently detailing their destination and roadmap. For the first time since the inception of what has been tagged Premier League in the country, a direct attempt at administering football as a commercial venture has been presented. But it is natural to resist change especially by a few who has held the system hostage and feeding filthy fat on the sweat of young Nigerians.

Let us examine the issues that seem to have been contentious starting with the alarm raised over the incorporation of the League Management Company (LMC). What emerges from most of the submissions made on social media is the question of ‘who granted the promoters of LMC the mandate to hold shares in trust for the clubs’? The second that has been raised is about the ownership of the LMC.

Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi

The recent clarification made through the release of a detailed report of their ‘reason d’être’ and activities so far by Mr. Ndukar Irabor, exposed a huge gap in knowledge by most of those who have been commenting on the structure of LMC and their approach to managing the league. But some are also strictly out of mischief aimed at retaining the status quo.

Some persons have also contended that the clubs ought to have come together to approve the incorporation of LMC and this flies in the face of the fact that it was the clubs in the first place that came together to dissolve their former executive committee. If recent development in the organization of the league has run counter to expectations of the clubs, it is incumbent on the ‘Club Owners’ to take a common position and challenge the LMC.

Incorporation of a company does not require a crowd and the reason for given mandate to anyone is for such persons to take decisions that will foster objectives of the mandate giver. But we are yet to hear complaints from the club, instead they have been participating in the 2013 season under the supervision of the LMC. It has been a surprise to read and hear arguments to the effect that Mr. Irabor and his team have hijacked the collective property of the clubs through the LMC.

This position arose from incorporation document that showed that as Chairman of LMC, he facilitated the registration process by assigning 20% of the paid-up capital to hiss name. This obviously was an interim measure to secure the incorporation and more so avoid the legal challenges that led to the judgment to unwind the NFL. You can only become an active shareholder or director by making equity contributions in cash, service or machinery to the capitalization of a business. What most of those crying wolf have missed is that the league has turned a phase to operate as a business and not the usual multi-purpose come-grab affair.

As seen in the ruling by the respected Justice D. O. Okorowo of the Abuja High Court in the case brought by Dr. Sam Sam Jaja against the NFF, NFL and some other individuals, “that the incorporation of the 1st Defendant as a company with the 1st and 2nd Defendant as the only subscribers to its Memorandum and Articles of Association is tantamount to incorporation by one person and thus illegal and void in so far as the 1st Defendant was not a legal person at the time of the subscription to the Memorandum and Articles of Association.”

Perhaps those who are worried about the stake of the clubs in LMC have failed to realize that the company has only been 25% capitalized going from the document recently circulated. What happens to the remaining 75%? Isn’t it obvious that this is the time to properly dimension football ownership and open the space for businesses to own stakes in football management through private placements and subscription. The clubs and individuals are free to buy up the remaining 75% and then we will hold the LMC Promoters accountable for returns on the investment over an agreed period of time.

Change is usually hard to absorb especially in a clime where people have gotten used to doing things in a particular wrong but selfish way. Why would anyone resist the withdrawal of the league franchise from an organization which has been declared as not known to law? At this point in time, we should be analyzing the business objectives of LMC to see how it can profit domestic football, especially the players through their clubs.

At this point that we seem to have gotten the management issues of the league on the right pedestal, the clubs can be helped by making them take a queue from also taking the right steps towards commercialization. We should be speaking the right language of franchise presently and not bothering our heads over what constitutes a league. We could have called it by whatever name that can be sold so far it attracts sponsors. It does not matter if it is called the Nigeria Football Conference or the Nigeria Football Club Challenge, etc but what matters is the perception we have of it.

Harry Iwuala, a Sports and Media Consultant and former Sponsorship Manager at Globacom Limited wrote from Lagos.