By Patrick Omorodion

When Honourable Nduka Irabor was appointed to help revive the ailing Nigeria Premier League, many if not all the clubs in the land, never wanted to support him. Feeling he has come to deny them what they enjoyed in the past, freedom.

Freedom to owe players several months of salaries and unpaid sign-on fees. Freedom to harass match officials and television crews at match venues and freedom to transfer players illegally to foreign clubs without recourse to either the league management or the parent body, the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF.

These clubs never bothered whether they earned anything from their participation in the league as long as their owners, the various state governments doled out millions every year in the running of the clubs. These millions were also most times unaccounted for.

The league was also run without sponsors after Globacom had issues with the authorities, mainly in the area of not getting the required mileage from their sponsorship. When Irabor told them that things will change for them in a short time, they never believed him.

Being a man of his words, the Chairman of the League Management Company first surprised the clubs when he announced a share of N10 million each for all the clubs from the sponsorship money. Instead of appreciating the LMC for the new dawn, some of them complained that they should have earned more.

But a patient and focused Irabor wouldn’t be deterred as he continued his drive to get the league out of the woods. He told them that money from the television rights which was never disclosed would be put on the table when the rights issue is finally settled.

He also ensured that boardroom points which was the practice in the past became history while clubs were also punished for hooliganism by their fans. Some decisions were taken and clubs were punished by asking that some controversial matches be replayed.

But the NFF’s Organising and Disciplinary Committee, did the unimaginable and returned everybody to the boardroom era. Thank God for the Appeals Committee which prevailed and stuck to the LMC’s decision for a replay.

The league has ended well and and all parties smiled home happy for their positions. To crown it all, the LMC came out with a novel reward of money for the participants, a departure from the past when it was ‘’to your tents O Israel’ at the end of the season.

For the O&D bribery scandal, the NFF must look into it and punish whoever is guilty to serve as a deterrent to those who may be habouring the idea of repeating the same show of shame that retards our football.

For Kano Pillars, I say congratulations for being the first side from up north to win the league back to back. Last year, critics said they won controversially but an encore this year shows that they truly deserved to be champions.
What remains for the government of Kano State now is to support the club financially so that they begin early preparation for the 2014 African Champions League. The coaching crew should also up their know-how, as technique and tactics are what count most at this stage of football.

However, the euphoria of a successful league was almost cut short when the club owners came out of their meeting during the week to say that it was time for the Irabor-led LMC to close shop and allow them time to conduct elections and elect their own officers to run the league’s affairs.

The NFF felt it was a slap on its face because the LMC the club owners were talking about was its own creation, to safe football in the land. And pronto, the president, Aminu Maigari, from far away UAE where he is boosting the morale of rampaging Golden Eaglets told the club owners to sheathe their swords because they have no powers to stop the LMC from continuing in office.

The Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi, who midwifed the idea of an LMC to solve the myriad of litigation that threatened to tear the game apart, added his voice to the issue, supporting the stance of Maigari that it was only the NFF that could decide the fate of the LMC.

If the club owners were satisfied with the way the LMC conducted the league and joyfully joined in sharing the largesse it brought from the title sponsorship, it was rather ironical that the same body would be calling for the sack of the LMC. On the other hand, they shouldn’t have put the cart before the horse, a meeting with the parent body, the NFF, could have been a much more better approach.

One is not saying the LMC should carry on forever. Everyone serious stakeholder should have given the LMC the support to consolidate on the gains recorded after which a gradual transition would have been planned to herald a new era for football