The kickoff of the 2012/2013 season of the Nigeria Premier League (NPL) slated for October may have been put on hold until all the issues that relates to sponsorship, television rights, and hundreds of petitions against the current board have been resolved.
Sources close to the National Sports Commission (NSC) revealed that the Minister of Sports and Chairman of the NSC Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi was bothered by the sorry state of the league, lack of sponsor for the league, dispute over television rights and how the money accrued from television rights are shared and the none resolution of various issues upon which petitions have been sent by aggrieved parties.
The Minister through the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has directed the board of the NPL to suspend the premiership until all the issues are resolved.
It will be recalled that the board of the NPL had announced that the new league will start in October, but with the Ministerial directive through the NFF, pending issues especially those relating to broadcast and sponsorship rights must first be resolve before the new season can commence.
An official of NSC revealed that the Minister has received tons of petitions on the handling of the league by the Baribote-led Board.
"Remember Mallam Abdullahi is the Minister of Sports, and nobody who is heading a place will be comfortable with the way the league is being run, until the league is seen as fair and well run, no individual or corporate body will invest in the league.
"That is why it is important that all the issues affecting our league negatively are resolved before the new season starts. We can’t pretend all is well when we know all is not well, let’s resolve all the issues before the new season starts”
Efforts to get the NPL Chairman Victor Baribote and officials of both NSC and NFF to comment were not successful.
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