NPFL Club Owners Dismiss Rift With Board

The Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) club owners association dismissed reports that clubs were set for a showdown with the NPFL board over financial differences.

The club owners were said to have planned a boycott of match-day 30 games billed for this weekend, over the non-disclosure of broadcast deals the NPFL signed with StarTimes and Propel Sports, as well as the fulfilment of financial commitments made at the start of the season.

Secretary of the body and Chairman, Sporting Lagos, Godwin Enakhena, informed said that they were negotiating with the board and also dealing with other issues such as accumulated outstanding matches in order to ensure a successful campaign, with just nine games to the end of the season.

“We are having negotiations, we are talking, but there are no complaints or problems,” Enakhena said in an interview. “We have issues we want to deal with; some of them include outstanding matches that have not been played.”

“The economy is a big issue, we all know that it’s affecting a lot of things but we are committed to ending the league as planned. And this is the tail end of the league. So we need to review certain things before we continue, so there is no fight anywhere.”

• Read more: NPFL, StarTmes sign broadcast deal

At the start of the season last September, strategic partners of the NPFL, GTI, announced the increase in the prize money of the league from N100m to N150m, as well as N10m take off grant for the 20 clubs.

The NPFL also signed a $5m streaming deal with Propel Sports and another N5.9bn deal over five seasons with StarTimes to broadcast the league on its cable channel.

Punch/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma.