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On What He Is Doing Differently To Improve NNL
Less than 3 months ago, the Nigerian National League which known as NNL witnessed a new dawn as it got a new chairman to see to the running of the second division of the Nigerian Professional Football League. On assumption of office, the new chairman, George Aluo who is a renowned sport journalist has hit the ground running. A lot is happenings behind the scenes as the NNL 2023/2024 is getting prepared to start a few weeks from now. The new chairman is working assiduously in ensuring the league which is considered as the most important in the country lives up to expectation. His appointment by the President of NFF, Alhaji Ibrahim Gasau has received lots of commendation from many football lovers in the country. They see his appointment as the NNL chairman as a square peg in the square hole. He has been around the football scene for over 2 decades and he understands the league enough to come in and make an impact. In a chat with City People Journalist, JAMIU ABUBAKAR (08085185886), Aluo revealed what his administration is doing differently to improve the league and make it more competitive for the 40 clubs playing in NNL. Below are excerpts:
Can you tell us a bit about the Nigerian National League and its importance to football development in Nigeria?
The Nigeria National League is the most important league. We pride ourselves in that as the most important league in the country. We are the bridge between the Amateur League and the Nigerian Professional Football League. That bridge; I mean the NNL, if it’s not solid, there’s no way the domestic league would be solid. So we are the most important league. We are the biggest. We have 40 clubs unlike the NPFL that have 20 clubs. It’s a league that Nigerians should identify and rally round if our football must actually develop.
How did you take your appointment as the Chairman of the Nigerian National League and what are your goals for the league?
First and foremost, it’s a national service. I want to thank the president of NFF for believing in me and believing that I can get the job done. It’s a call to duty that I want to give my very best. I want to run a league that Nigerians would be proud of. With the cooperation of every Nigerian, and major stakeholders, I would be able to deliver on this mandate.
What are some of the plans you have for the league development?
Yes, some of the plans like I said are organizing a seminar for coaches. The coaches are key. When a team plays well, it is the coaches. We want to make sure that our coaches get better. We are organizing a capacity building course for them. And I have gotten the Nigerian Institute for Sports to play their statutory role. The statutory role of the NIS is to develop Nigerian sports as an institute. So I’m getting them involved. They are getting resource persons to train our coaches. And then we’ve gotten sponsors for this capacity building seminar that would come up on the 15th of October, running through the 18th. We would start the league very soon after our AGM. And we want to play a competitive league that Nigerians would be proud of. On the whole, we are putting plans in place and our target is to ensure that the league gets better.
As the NNL Chairman, what’s the update about the league?
The league is going well. When I came on board, we organized our first relegation play off in Kano. It was a huge success. The officiating was top notch. All the club’s left Kano satisfied with what we did. And now we are planning for the new season, 2023/2024. After the AGM in Jos, we will now unfold what we have in stock; when the league would start, the format it would take and all that. Trust me the whole idea is to play a competitive league. A league that is different from what we used to know. Already, we have started by getting our coaches to the classroom before the start of the season to have a capacity training seminar. The 40 NNL clubs would have their coaches taken to the classroom and they would be drilled for 3 days by Austin Eguaveon, the technical director of NFF alongside the Portuguese coach and resource persons from the National Institute for Sports. NNL is partnering with NIS in all of these. So I want to get the coaches trained. The NFF has already done a seminar for the referees. We want to play a league where clubs can go anywhere on the road and win.
Do you have any sponsor presently as far as NNL is concerned?
No, we are still talking to sponsors. We hope that the discussion we are having will yield fruit very soon. We are engaging the corporate Nigerians in our drive to get sponsors and I want to believe that the efforts we are making will yield dividends very soon.
Apart from sponsorship, what are the other challenges faced?
The major thing is the sponsors, appealing to Nigerians and corporate bodies to identify with us because nobody claps with one hand like the late MKO Abiola would say. We want to appeal to Nigerians to rally round us. That is the way we can take the league to the next level.
Looking at the present state of our football, do you think we can still get it right?
We can get it right. It’s just that we need to get the right people on board and people who can drive the system. That’s what the President of NFF, Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau is already doing. I think we can begin to get it right. We equally need corporate support because the government cannot do everything. Once the corporate bodies are ready to identify with our football, then the country’s teams can continue to fly again.
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