Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the NationWide League One (NLO), Mr. Olushola Ogunnowo has cleared the air on why clubs in the nation’s third-tier domestic league were yet to receive their share of the FIFA and CAF palliatives.
Recall the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) had in October 2020 acknowledged that they had received the Two Million dollars ($2 million) largesse, being relief funds promised by the world football governing body, FIFA, and Africa’s apex soccer body, CAF with regards to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Amaju Pinnick led board informed on how the $2 million would be shared across the various national male and female teams and governing bodies of the various leagues, including Nigeria Professional Football League, Nigeria National League, Nigeria Women Football League and the Nigeria Nationwide League One, as a booster for their preparation ahead of the 2020/2021 league Season.
Ogunnowo in an interview with OwoSports.com.ng gave an insight on what caused the delay in the transfer of the funds to NLO clubs. He also spoke on other burning issue and plans the NLO Secretariat have outlined for the upcoming season during the Berackiah/Abigol Coaching Clinic, which commenced at the Otunba Dipo Dina International Stadium, Ijebu-Ode, on Monday last week.
The Clinic which was Integrated by the Nationwide League One (NLO) is aimed to train, educate and develop Nigeria Coaches.
Below is the excerpt from the interview.
OwoSports.com.ng: Since the Covid-19 pandemic broke; it has been tough for most NLO teams as they’re privately owned, you (Olushola Ogunnowo) been the eye of league, what is the issue with the FIFA and CAF palliatives?
Ogunnowo: It’s on record that the NLO was the first league body that informed clubs in it’s fold to make available their bank account details for credit transfer of the palliative funds, I mean the instructions came from the NFF. If they weren’t ready to pay, the won’t instruct NLO as a body to inform clubs.
The NLO then thought it wise to collect these accounts and send to the NFF for payment. So in November last year the bank account details we got from the clubs were private ones, some submitted accounts that has no correlation with the clubs they manage. So rather than give NFF these accounts, we had to scrutinize them. You know it’s easy to confirm if an account is private or corporate, so in the vetting process, we discovered that more than 70% were private accounts.
To make matters worse some club officials submitted their own personal accounts without the consent of the club President/Owners. So this is fraud as we have our records believing some persons would want to cut corners to gain access to the funds.
That was why the process of transferring the funds to clubs was delayed. So when they were not forthcoming, we then asked questions. Many of the clubs claimed they do not have corporate accounts on the grounds that they were not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). The act is totally wrong as in 2015 we issued a memo to all teams that they must administer their clubs as business entities, even private business are also registered with the CAC.
I mean clubs all over the world that have developed to the level they are today, are been run as business and not charities.
In trying to be progressive with a view of getting the clubs registered with CAC, we found out that the fees charged for registration using legal firms was much, as each club needed to pay a sum of #70,000 Naira.
We then spoke with our legal partners, Delphy Law Advisory, they’re based in Lagos, they were of great help as they said they will support Nigeria’s grassroot football by waving off their legal charges, they then asked clubs to pay #45,000 Naira only.
This we felt is reasonable enough and sadly only a few have engaged the services of the law firm. Even the law firm made us to understand that many of the clubs have been submitting fraudulent documents to the NLO as many don’t have CAC certificate.
The few clubs that got the certificate via the law firm have presented to the NLO their account details and in December last year, we forwarded 156 bank accounts of clubs to the NFF for payment of Covid-19 funds.
In the process of getting the funds transferred to the various bank accounts of clubs in the 1st batch which made up 50% of teams in NLO, another issue came about as some clubs petitioned the NFF that they were in Division One and as such would get more funds as against teams in Division Two.
Based on these petitions, the NFF suspended payment and sort for clarity from the NLO Secretariat. I had to go to the Accounts Department of the NFF to clarify the issue. Both teams in NLO Division One and Two pay a sum of #150,000 each as registration fee, play almost same number of matches and amount for match officials indemnities, so what’s the difference and yardstick that clubs must earn differently from the FIFA & CAF palliatives.
With these fact the NFF then said it wasn’t wise delaying the fund as it has submitted it to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for payment directly to the account details of the clubs. The process is on, we are monitoring it and also talking to the NFF to help expedite action on the process. So no NLO club will be left out as teams in the other league bodies have got theirs.
Put all the teams that have got their FIFA and CAF palliatives together, they’re not even up to half the teams in the NLO, so it’s going to be a process, that’s why we’ve appealed to the club to exercise little patience. The time they have waited for this funds can’t be compared to the time the funds will be credited to their accounts.
The Berackiah/Abigol Coaching Clinic kicked off in the South-West Zone with Ijebu-Ode as centre, how much of positive has on the NLO?
As regards why the NationWide League One was set up, one kitting is development and who are we developing, the man power. What makes up the man power, the coaches as they’re the key factor. In essence we are helping them to be better in their career.
We have over a hundred coaches from the well over 70 to 80 clubs in the South-West Zone in Division 1and 2. Good response from the clubs when you look at the number of coaches that have participated in the clinic.
The number of participants would have been much but I guess it’s not their making. In my chat with some of the coaches, they confirmed they had not been privileged to attend a clinic of this quality, as most of them just have basic coaching courses certificate from the National Institute of Sports (NIS).
So it’s part of the positives as these coaches have learnt one or two new things and as such would impact them on their players on the pitch rather than let unqualified coaches train these youngsters. This invariably affected the performances of our national youth teams, when unskilled coaches handle these players at the early stages, the long run effect of this would mean their career been jeopardized as they grow older.
Players that feature for both the Golden Eaglets and Flying Eagles are products from NLO and grassroot leagues, so It’s good that the coaching clinic is happing at this time as it will benefit both the third-tier domestic league and country at large.
The NLO has set standard in terms of organisation and planning, what are the new things clubs and fans should expect this season?
We only need to improve on what we have been doing, we are never perfect but can be near perfect. The NLO is also looking at what developed Football Associations are doing with their grassroot leagues as there is a new trend in football organisation, planning and administration. We want to follow the model of the countries that have record successes using these new trends.
Report on February or March kick-off of the new season, how true is this?
No date has been fixed yet as it’s mere speculations. If you recall the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) had suggested that the NLO season kicks off on February 10, we then wrote the NFF that the date is not likely as they had approved the Berackiah/Abigol Coaching Clinic for the NationWide League and would not end before 10th of February. So we requested for a three (3) weeks extension which would enable us conclude the clinic and hold our Congress and then start the season.
Based on the letter we sent to the NFF, some media houses I guess got hold of it and went about publishing that the NLO season would commence in March. Add three (3) weeks to 10th of February, you should have March 3-7. I want to use this medium to inform that the season kick-off date will surely be made public when it has been rectified by the Congress.
We already planning on how our Congress will hold, perhaps a virtual meeting which of course will be safe for us. The date for this meeting has not been fixed. If you follow our programmes in the past, we give consideration to all clubs on when convenient to start the season as these clubs are privately owned. We also need to look at the expenses the clubs will bear, how well they can cope. That’s why we have not been having issues in the league, with over 306 clubs, one would expect lots of rancour and pickering.
We don’t experience it as we try to follow the rules guiding the NLO and off course we don’t bend the rules. That’s is what the NLO boss Mohammed Akali and the board is known for as he would always ask, Sola, what we did is it in line with the rules? I would say yes and his response will be go ahead. That’s why clubs we sanctioned after they have been found wanting don’t complain as they know that we follow the rules.
The season used to be an Home & Away format, what is the NLO’s plan this season now that we’re living with the coronavirus?
This season, we decided to adopt what we term a Stadium League. It’s a system were we pick teams to a particular stadium and they play their matches. We did that for some reasons, the Covid-19 pandemic ravaging the world, the risks of teams travel during this period and the insecurity situation on our highways.
We also considered the finances of the clubs as Nigeria is in a recession. Private businesses and individuals are feeling the heat too, so why must we make them spend much just because they need to fund their clubs. If we didn’t come up with this strategy, the private owners would shy away from funding their teams. The short run effect of this would see these players been thrown to the streets and the negative effect of such action would mean an increase in social vices like robbery, kidnapping, rape, internet for (otherwise known as Yahoo Yahoo in local parlance), drug abuse and more.
This would have a negative effect on the country, infact our critics don’t know why we took such decision. The idea came, I looked at the positives and negatives and found out it was more of positives. So I suggested it to the NLO boss and Board, then I proved it beyond logical conclusion that the Stadium League was best for the clubs at this trying time and behold it was approved by the Board.
If we had not adopted the Stadium League format which is less expensive, then many clubs withdraw from the league, whose benefit would it be. Like I want to NLO to grow more than this, let me also state categorically that the 306 teams in the league is not enough.
In the five year plan we presented the NFF, we stressed on the need for more teams to be in the NLO as the 306 clubs is too low for a population of youths in Nigeria that are actively seeking a career in football.
When you look at the ratio of youngsters that play football it’s about 40 to 60 million, then how football clubs do you have in the country. Take Ghana that’s not as big or populated as Nigeria as an example, look at the correlation of their players to clubs is high while ours is low. So we’re still looking at ways to have more clubs in the NLO.
Once we have more clubs, we’ll continue to run the league as a regional one in the Six Geo-political Zones. It will make it easy for clubs as it’s less expenses, reduces the risks of travel and makes adminstration easy. Many critics might not know, however we have answers to every of their questions.
OwoSports.com.ng: Thank you Sir for shedding lights on the burning issues on the NLO and finding solutions with the different strategies adopted, all in view of making the league better for grassroot clubs and players which forms the basis of our national teams.
Ogunnowo: It’s always my pleasure.
