Club owners re-affirm readiness for NPFL kickoff date

The Football Club Owners Association of Nigeria are ready and looking forward to the kick-off of the 2023/24 Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) season, so says the body’s General Secretary, Godwin Enakhena.

He made this clarification while reacting to reports that the clubs were responsible for the shift from the earlier announced August 26 kickoff date to September 9, 2023 by the NPFL board.

“For the umpteenth time, I’ll like to say that at no point in time did the Football Club Owners Association of Nigeria suggest a kickoff date for the new Nigeria Premier Football League season because it is the responsibility of the NPFL. August 26, 2023 proposed date was only adopted by the clubs during our meeting with the NPFL board in Abuja,” explained Enakhena.

On the latest move of the date of the NPFL AGM that was to be used to conduct the draw for the new season to next week, Enakhena said that the NPFL board stated clearly reasons for the decision in a letter to the clubs.

“Like I said earlier, the clubs are ready for the commencement of the new NPFL season and members were ready to go to Abuja for the AGM and draw this when we received a letter from the NPFL board stating why the event had to be moved by a few days from Thursday 24, August to Tuesday 29, August, 2023.

These were cogent reasons that bothered on the need for the league organizers to tidy up some loose ends”, revealed  Enakhena who is the Chairman of Sporting Lagos, a team that gained promotion to the NPFL from the Nigeria National League (NNL) at the end of last season.