NPFL Board, Still Same Old Wine

Kunle Adewale

Last season, the Interim Management Committee (IMC), manager of the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) led by Gbenga Elegbeleya gave the impression that a new Sherriff was in town with the way the NPFL was prosecuted.

Now that the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF a board in charge of the NPFL, with the former IMC boss as chairman and virtually all his IMC crew as members, one expected that some consistency in the activities of the board.

However, to the disappointment of followers of the league which has just won some new converts courtesy of the success recorded by the Super Six and helped greatly by the unprecedented achievement recorded by the Naija Super 8 the NPFL announced the postponement of the 2023/34 Nigeria league season in spite having ample time to prepare and vowing severally that the August date is sacrosanct.

Postponement of kickoff dates has always been synonymous with the Nigerian League but when one thought Elegbeleye and his board was bringing sanity and consistency to the league it recently announced a two-week postponement.

NPFL last week extended the resumption date of the new football season by two weeks after it had originally set  August 26, as the kickoff date for the 2023/24 season, but it has now been extended by two weeks.

According to the statement released by the league board, the reason for the extension is to properly prepare for a full season since it won’t be played in an abridged format.

The management of English Premier League in which most countries model their league is not known for postponing the kickoff date of its league, so why always the NPFL.

It would be recalled that the NPFL suffered two postponements last season courtesy of Elegbeleye’s IMC.