The Nigeria Nationwide League (NLO) is the third-tier league in the country, evolving and making giant strides to the amazement of many stakeholders in the country despite daunting challenges. In this interview with LEKAN OLASEINDE, the Chief Operating Officer, COO, Mr. Sola Ogunnowo rates the performance of his administration and proffer solutions to the problems confronting the NLO.
Successes recorded so far
Thank you very much. We all know that the Nigeria National League(NLO) was bastardized and in 2014 the top echelons of the Nigeria Football Federation(NFF) asked me to take over the reins of office. I came in to sanitize the place ,one of the first thing I did was that the rules were bring out, followed to the letters by ensuring that players are been registered in the normal way and well documented.
“We also ensured that matches are been played and authenticated unlike before when you know the outcome of your match before it was played, where you have results already computed for you.
“We ensured that everybody that is saddled with responsibilities must carried out the assignment pertaining to him or her judiciously to the referees on the field of play, coaches , staff and players from then sanity started coming to the league you hardly hear of crises . And gradually crises started reducing to the barest minimum, in face now there is zero-tolerance for violence, initially the clubs were using the loopholes to get boardroom points but all those things are now in the past. No club was able to get a single boardroom point.
The NFF secretariat was surprised at the new lease of life in NLO and since then we have maintained the momentum. When sanity started moving in from then we graduated to employing professionals in the areas of marketing , sponsorship and so on.
Right now ,we are in partnership with Radio Nigeria FRSN ,so that so our matches can be broadcast on airwaves .In 2019 we have a partnership with My Cujoo.tv to have live streaming of our matches so that people can watch our games all over the world on their mobile applications. This year, we should be beaming 200 matches across the globe. Our Nigeria partners is Deebeetee Projects Limited.
Obstacles
The number one thing that hindered our success is finance .For any good to come out of any organization you need finance. Our own is not different.
The second major problem we are having is the grassroot people. To managed them is very difficult, to let them do the right thing is an herculean task. Let me give you a classical example, when I resumed I told them all the players in the league must be insured because I told the clubs that you travelled on the roads almost on daily basis , what happened in case of eventuality ? These players are not your children and so on …what will happen in case of eventuality ? It was a very big battle between us but thank God the NFF stood their ground. NFF insisted that all the players must be insured during one of our Congresses we really thank God for that.
Again, we said that all the players must do medical assessment, let them be certified by competent medical practitioners that’s why our league is free of sudden heart attack or collapse by players.
On FIFA grant
Yes, I must confess to you that grant has always been given to us by FIFA but it is not always enough. We also get support from the NFF. Last year, we were given some funds to support our project but it was in grossly adequate last year we were in need and run to NFF who came into our assistance.
2020 NLO League
We are hoping to get a higher score-mark in 2019 the whole world was praising us as one of the best organized league you can verify on online. In 2020 we will do much more better and part of it is to beam 200 live matches on life streaming .It is not local it is international, it’s a win-win situation for us , anywhere our matches are going to be beam live our staff will be there to monitor and provide logistics support , we are involving a lot of stakeholders so that we don’t do anything that will tarnish the image of the league because it’s the largest league in Africa. We can allow anybody to tarnish the image and reputation of our league. Therefore, we have several stakeholders across the federations who always helped us to cut down the excesses of match officials and put everything in order. These stakeholders give us feedback and we are able to monitor everywhere adequately.
Betting
We are consulting with the NFF on the issue of betting on our league especially in the Asian countries. The number one thing is that it’s not affecting our league if you lose you lose gallantly not because of betting or any manipulation. That’s we you hardly hear about crises in our league, you can go and win anywhere. That means the officiating is very good. Though, we have if from FIFA that our league is worth close to $500m (five hundred million dollars) in Asia and South America. We are talking to the NFF Integrity Committee on the matter on how we can derive benefit from the betting companies.
Security of match officials
Most of our venues are secured . We want to orientate our people.If there is well orientation there will be less crisis . In our league we hardly record any violence anywhere such things want to happen we quickly nip it in the bud. We work in conjunction with the Nigeria Police and other security outfit to provide adequate security for the match officials ,players ,spectators, and teams in a seamless manner.
We also have CSP Ebere Amarizu with us .We give our people enough orientation even if you feel cheated we plead that you go through the right channel and make your case. In 2018 season , we have to cancel a champions match of match fixing and we ordered re-play because we noticed disparencies at the end of the day everybody was happy that’s what we do at the NLO. We tried our best that nobody is cheated.
Format
In NLO ,we played the same format because it’s not a professional league. That’s why we played on zonal basis you don’t need to travel far to play your matches and most times some of our players are workers, students, artisans, they can play today and go back to their schools tomorrow .We tried as much as possible to follow the tenets of non-professional league by not allowing teams to travel far. In NLO we played zonal matches. This year we will still follow the same pattern.
Withdrawal in the league
You can hardly see any team withdrawing from our league ,we have the record with us if such happened it must have to do with the death of the club owner. The expenses in NLO is not too much and that’s we are having a large number of clubs. FIFA does not expect club in NLO to break bank. Our expenses are not much.
Legacy
I want to leave a professionally run league behind. I won’t be in that office forever. I’m a career civil servant one day I will definitely be transfer out of that office but I want to assured that anybody that’s coming in will follow what is on the ground. Anybody coming in must be ready to brace up for the challenges ahead. We have tried our best to ensured professionalism, integrity and uprightness in our dealings with the clubs despite the facts that we have the largest numbers of clubs in the country .You hardly hear any noise in our league.
