Nelson Ine, a vastly experienced Chartered Stockbroker and staunch football supporter believed the novel The Nigeria Football Fund (TNFF) can be the cure-all medicine for the maladies inherent in Nigerian domestic football system. MORAKINYO ABODUNRIN writes, via The Nation Newspaper.
In Nelson Ine, an Executive Director at GTI Asset Management & Trust Ltd, there’s the truism that ‘you don’t judge a book by its cover’ and as matter of fact, he seemed to be an unlikely football fan just by mere looking.
But Ine is an antithesis judging by mere look; rather, he’s indeed a football man through-and-through in words and deeds. No wonder he spoke unequivocally on how the novel The Nigeria Football Fund (TNFF) can be the cure-all medicine for the maladies inherent in Nigeria domestic football.
He believed with TNFF, Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) can methodologically break into the ranks of big and celebrated leagues in the world, adding that when there’s a will, there would be a way in ensuring the development and growth of football in the country.
“TNFF is a specialized mutual fund where Nigerians can invest in and their investments would be channeled into professional sports because professional sports have the capability to deliver revenue,” Ine, a chartered stockbroker with over three decades of experience, explained recently in an animated presentation at the GTI corporate headquarters in Lagos.
“TNFF is not a donation scheme but where people invest in and they will get their returns because this is strictly business,” he affirmed.
Over the years, many have argued that one of the problems bedeviling the NPFL and Nigerian football in general was funding and deployment of scarce sponsorship funds which has robbed the game of the needed lift.
But Ine, an alumnus of ‘sport-mad’ Hussey College in Warri, Delta State, admitted that mismanagement of funds had long been the bane of Nigerian sports but argued that there is a light at the end of the tunnel with TNFF.
“Nigerian sports don’t need government funding to survive because we have enough Nigerian investors that can drive professional sports including the NPFL,” Ine, a staunch supporter of Bendel Insurance ‘right from my teenage years’ further stated. “The purpose of this engagement is for us to see how marriage between sports and business the module and right way is to adopt if we want to break the shackles of poverty that had long affected our football.”
For a start, GTI has entered into partnership with NPFL being currently supervised by the Gbenga Elegbeleye-led Interim League Management (IMC) and the investment banking outfit doled out an impressive take off grant of N10m to each of the 20 clubs competing in the on-going abridged 2022/2023 NPFL season.
As part of its mandate, the GTI Group are currently involved with the day-to-day running of the league as per payment of indemnities to match officials as well as running of the secretariat of the league body.
“We (GTI) are a strategic partner of the NPFL, and we are to ensure that the system runs seamlessly with a life of its own,” the graduate of Economics from University of Ibadan and Master of Business Administration from University of Nigeria, Nsukka, further noted. “GTI is a financial investment institution, and we see NPL as an asset.
“The essence of our partnership with NPFL is to deliver value, and generate revenues and we believe the NTFF is an enabler for the purpose of developing the NPFL and Nigerian football in general.”
Ine, who captained the University of Ibadan‘s team to win the soccer title at the 1990 Nigeria University Games Association (NUGA) in Calabar, further argued that clubs as constituted in the NPFL presently, cannot inspire business module or investment-driven with almost all the clubs under the aegis of state governments’ funding, adding that it’s about time that government at all levels disengage from the running of professional sports including football.
He continued: “Government can be involved in sports only at the amateur or the grassroots levels; beyond that, the government has no business in elite or international sports.
“When the right structures are put in place, foreign investors will invest. There are certain fundamentals that guide professional sports across the world, these fundamentals are what we should look at and do we have these fundamentals? Or are they functioning very well? If not, we are in trouble.
“Talented athletes are very important, you can have all the facilities in the world; you have all the coaches in the world, but if you don’t have the talent, it will be a waste.
“We are blessed with talents in this country but we often mismanage them. We are supposed to use these talents to make money.
“ The TNFF is an initiative of GTI that is designed to build a football economy that will transform sports into profitable ventures and unlock more private sector participation and benefit all stakeholders, not any individual.
“The TNFF is endorsed by the NFF and it is registered by and approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC).
“We (GTI) are not sponsors of the NPFL rather we are strategic partners and burden bearers because somebody must bear this burden and rescue our football.
“Whether we like it or not, foreign investors will enter our league, local investors will come and they bring the right money and all the state government will have to quit. The value of these clubs will appreciate significantly when the right things are put in place .”
Yet the first Nigerian to obtain the MSA Sport Management & Technology from the International Academy of Sports Science and Technology (AISTS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, is not oblivious to the challenges that lie ahead but insisted that GTI through the TNFF was ready to address some of the funding pitfalls that had long bedeviled Nigerian football.
He offered: “GTI has new arrangements with the NPL and there are certain structures we are putting in place, like investments and accountability from media rights, sponsorship, and TV rights.
“Through GTI, all the funds generated by the league will be protected by the Nigeria Security and Exchange Commissions. No money goes into anybody’s pocket again and those funds can only be used for what they are meant for, the development of the league.”