The Nigeria Football Federation led by Chris Giwa has thrown more light into why his board revoked the 99-year licence granted the League Management Company by the Aminu Maigari-led NFF board in 2012. Former Sports Minister, Bolaji Andulahi, had inaugurated a 13-man League Management Committee led by Nduka Irabor in 2012 after the Nigeria Professional Football Premier League chairman Chief Rumson Baribote was removed by the NPFL board.
The brief at that time was for the LMC to midwife the league for one season and then organise election that will usher in the new board. But the goal-posts were shifted few months later when Maigari’s NFF secretly registered the LMC with the Corporate Affairs Commission as limited company with one person holding over 80 per cent shares which he claimed he was holding in trust for the 20 Premier League clubs. The NFF board at its last meeting in Abuja recently ordered the revocation of the licence and asked Mr Kasali Obanoyen to act as Secretary of the Nigeria Professional Football League.
In a communiqué the NFF declared that the legal licence to operate the Premier League in Nigeria was duly conferred by the NFF on the Nigeria Football League Limited. “Before now, there were various evidential and fraudulent attempts at the use of the name Nigeria Football Association and Nigeria Football Federation interchangeably in the process of granting the licence ab initio,” the NFF board argued in its communique.
“From records available to us, the board is aware that a company, LMC LTD has been parading itself as having broadcasting and title sponsorship rights including the right to superintend over the operations of the NPFL it claimed to have been conferred on it by the NFA. “We wish to inform the general public that the legal licence was duly conferred by the NFA on the Nigeria Football League Limited with all the rights emanating from the licence residing ONLY with the NPFL till date.”
