Jenkins Alumona: NAIJA Super 8 Will Help Domestic Football Revival

Jenkins Alumona, Managing Director of Flykite Productions, organisers of the recently unveiled NAIJA Super 8 football competition explains to select journalists, including Olaoluwakitan Babatunde how the the initiative will affect club football in Nigeria

You and your organisation, Flykite Productions, are associated with boxing. But in recent weeks, we’ve seen your organisation associating with football, specifically NAIJA Super 8. What is the new project about?

The link with boxing is a correct one and I believe you’re talking about GOtv Boxing Night and GOtv Boxing NextGen Search, which began in 2014 and 2015 respectively, as interventions in boxing, which had floundered. We are happy at the progress boxing has made, recovering from what seemed like a coma. NAIJA Super 8 has been in the works for three years or a little more. It is also an intervention. This time, in domestic football, which used to be big and had fans flocking to the stadiums. It had iconic clubs, riveting historical rivalries and big stars. But as the years went by, domestic club football lost its luster, with many of the fans no longer going to watch games.  My belief is that many of the fans stayed away because amongst other things they no longer derived excitement. So, NAIJA Super 8 is an attempt to return the excitement to the domestic game by bringing back the fans, the lifeblood of the game and providing incentives capable of providing returns, financial and cultural, to all football stakeholders.

I don’t doubt that you understand that there are mile-high odds to scale in your bid to realise this objective. How do you plan to bring the fans back?

Permit me to say that we had a similar situation with boxing in 2014, when the same kind of doubt was expressed. We were asked, everywhere we turned, if fans were still keen on boxing.  I’m sure you have been to many of our shows and you can provide the answer. A major element in the conception of NAIJA Super 8 is its fan-centredness. By this, I mean that it is about the fans and for the fans, whom we seek to engage and are already engaging. Essentially the plan is to see the country’s eight most beloved teams in a tournament during the close season. The tournament is a two-stage affair. The first stage will see 12 teams, two from each geo-political zone of the country, take on each other in single-match elimination games at the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium, Uyo, from 1-3 June. The winners will be the geo-political zone’s representatives.

The 12 teams will be decided by the fans from a shortlist of 41 teams drawn from across the country by the NAIJA Super 8 Advisory Committee. Two clubs with the highest number of votes from each zone will qualify for the play-offs. The voting process is managed by Deloitte to ensure its fidelity. Voting began on 10 April and will end on 12 May. We are delighted with the response of the fans so far. Six teams will emerge at the end of the play-offs and will be joined by two others, which are wildcard entries to be decided by the organisers. Fans who want their club to participate in NAIJA Super 8 need to vote on the voting platforms one of which is the Naija Super 8 website

What happens after the conclusion of the play-offs?

The second stage, the finals that will be held at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena in Lagos between 16 and 25 June. The finals, I need to add, will be preceded by the unveiling of two wild cards in addition to the teams that qualified, making eight teams and a fixture list.

Qualified teams will be divided into two groups of four and play in a tournament format, with two teams with the point tallies from each group proceeding to the semi-final and two winners moving into the final. One of the good things about NAIJA Super 8 is that it gives room for cup-style giant-killing. The competition is not restricted to clubs in a particular division. A club, irrespective of the tier it plays in, simply needs to mobilize its fans to vote to have a chance to get into the play-offs and anything can happen afterwards. At this point, I think I need to thank the Nigeria Football Federation, which licensed the tournament and has been of immense support. We also need to thank the directing minds in the other football bodies, administrators, club owners and chairmen and everyone in the football ecosystem. They have been fantastic all the way. They have offered advice and shoulders to lean on when we’ve needed them and are still not tired of doing the same. There is nothing we’ve asked of them that they haven’t given.

You spoke about incentives. What are these?

Let’s start with those going to the participating clubs. Those that qualify for the play-offs will get N2 million each to offset their travel/logistics expenses to Uyo, where they will be provided accommodation while there. Those who make it to Lagos will earn N3 million per game. That means if your team qualifies for the finals, it stands to earn N3 million per game exclusive of transportation and accommodation costs, which will be borne by us. The minimum a team in finals of NAIJA Super 8 can earn is N9 million. Those who get into the semi-finals get an additional N3 million each. For the finalists, the pot is bigger. Losing finalists get N9 million in addition to the N12 million accruing from the group stage and semi-final. The winners get N25million in addition to what they have earned from the earlier games. That’s for the clubs. For the players, there are incentives to do well. The Man of the Match for each game, to be decided by fan voting, will go home with N250,000. If a player gets three Man of the Match Awards, he earns N750, 000. And as reasonably likely, if he gets named in the Team of the Tournament, he gets an additional N100,000, the sum attached to being named in the Team of the Tournament.

Clubs are encouraged to bring their fans to the two venues and we will be making some money available to them to cushion the costs and provide accommodation.

Interesting. But where are you finding the money for the prizes and other aspects of the tournament?

We are delighted to have found sponsors and partners on the same bandwidth with us, as they are sufficiently interested in the return of domestic club football to prominence and have committed and still committing resources to this intervention. We have SuperSport, which will broadcast all the matches of the play-offs and finals live. We have DStv and GOtv, MTN, Pepsi and Moniepoint. Others have expressed interest and we will announce them when the details are finalized.

What incentives should the fans expect?

High-standard football because the stakes are high. This tournament is also a marriage between football and entertainment. For every game, there will be live musical performances by the biggest of Nigerian musical artistes. This is a football party, with fun delivered in spades. There are also gifts to be won by fans, whom we believe and seem ready to retake the ownership of the domestic game. It’s a fans’ game and it is why we have made them the centrepiece of NAIJA Super 8. The fan is the star of the story.

For a while, you’ve been around sports, first as a journalist and broadcaster. But in the last few years, as stated earlier, boxing has been your scene. Why football now?

I don’t see a difference. My passion for boxing is undiminished and I am the Chairman of the Lagos State Boxing Association. What I seek to do with the little mental resources I am blessed with is to intervene where intervention is needed. We keep doing it in boxing, with credible results and we hope to do it in football. Both are sports and similar principles apply. So, there is no sharp dichotomy. 

But the big nudge to do this comes from the Chairman of Flykite, Chief Adewunmi Ogunsanya, Odofin of Ikorodu who keeps asking us to find ways to bring back the glory days of our sports. He is always quick to remind us of what Nigeria sports fans once used to enjoy and why we need to return things to what they used to be. He drives us. 

Once again, I wish to thank the Nigeria Federation led by Alhaji Mohammed Gusau and all other football bodies in the country for their immense support and guidance.