Pinnick calls for private ownership of Nigerian football clubs

Private ownership of football clubs has been suggested to be one of the ways to promote the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL), and make it as lucrative as it used to be in the past.

This was the submission of the President of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick in Lagos.

Speaking in Lagos, Pinnick noted that Nigeria needs football clubs that will have history, as this is when they would feature in big matches like the CAF Champions League final.

In his words “We don’t just want to play football for the social reason of uniting Nigeria, but we are coming out with a policy very soon, which I will submit to the reforms committee, where all clubs must have a certain percentage of private ownership. Twenty percent can go to the government because of the stadia that they own, which can be converted as equity. We need clubs that will have history. That is the only time that you will see Nigerian clubs playing in the final of the CAF Champions League.

“We want the football clubs to be owned privately Let them bring their friends and companies to manage and run this club as a proper business. How much does it cost to run a club in Nigeria? It is about developing strategies of how to raise funds to themselves.”

Pinnick further revealed that one of the major projects of the NFF is to make football play a big part in the Nigerian economy.

“Part of what we are coming to do in our second tenure is to build a football economy. Look at the sports eco-system of Nigeria; it’s quite ambitious, making football an integral part of the Nigerian economy. We need to do that, because football is not just about the social factor, it is a massive business. It gives the UK government 3.3 billion pounds, every year.”