The Chris Giwa-led board of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has revoked licence granted the League Management Company (LMC) to midwife the Nigerian Professional Football Premier League (NPFL) with immediate effect.
The body, in a communiqué issued after its meeting on Tuesday and signed by a board member, Adama Yahaya, claimed there were various fraudulent attempts at the use of the names ‘Nigeria Football Association (NFA)’ and ‘Nigeria Football Federation (NFF)’ interchangeably in the process of granting the licence.
The communiqué stressed that officials swore in court affidavits that they were NFF and no more NFA. Yet they wrote, signed and sealed agreements during the same period as “NFA.”
“It’s clear that the various usage of the coinage ‘NFA’ as having granted licence to the LMC to manage the Premier League for 99 years, or its involvement in the formation of the LMC, is fraudulent and illegal,” the statement said.
“From the records available to us, the Board is aware that a company, LMC LTD, has been parading itself as having broadcasting and title sponsorship rights including the right to superintend over the operations of the Nigerian Professional Football Premier League (NPFL), it claimed to have been conferred on it by the NFA.
“We wish to inform the general public that the legal license to operate the Premier League was duly conferred by the NFA on the Nigeria Football League Limited (NFLL) with all the rights emanating from the License residing ONLY with the NFLL till date,” the communiqué stated.
The Nigeria Football League Limited (NFLL) was, therefore, directed to resume its legal mandate of directly running the league under an interim Premier League structure.
While disclosing that Kasali Obanoyen has been designated to act as Secretary of the NFLL in the interim, the Giwa-led group said his appointment takes immediate effect.
