The League Management Company (LMC) said on Wednesday that it had cancelled boardroom points for clubs in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL), with effect from this week’s matches.
Alhaji Salihu Abubakar, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the LMC, said this in Abuja.
Abubakar said time had gone when clubs depended on boardroom points, to progress in the league.
He said that the antics adopted by the clubs to earn points after appeal cases were responsible for most of the trouble witnessed in the league.
According to Abubakar, who was a former Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Premier League (NPL): “All matches will henceforth start and end on the playing pitch. They must be played to conclusion.
“You cannot play antics and expect that you come to the LMC and get points free. Football is a practical game.
“If you watch our games in the last few weeks, you will see that a number of matches were not concluded; there were crowd troubles and some referees were beaten up.
“Don’t forget that our core mandate is to clean up the game, restructure and take the league forward and possibly make it to be among the best in Africa and the world.”
He said the report of the committee on match-fixing, submitted to the Minister of Sports and the outcome of their meeting with clubs on Sunday would go a long way in sanitising the league.
The former NPL scribe said that both LMC and the 20 premier league clubs have signed to respect the abolition of the boardroom points.
“We had a crisis meeting and outlined measures to ensure that all our matches will be played smoothly, especially the last seven remaining matches of the season.
“That meeting was our normal consultative meeting. We usually have it every month. A number of resolutions were reached and key among them is the declaration of an emergency on the league,’’ he said.
Abubakar said that security at match venues would be doubled and some aspect of the regulations waived, as part of the emergency rule.
The LMC COO said consequently, clubs would be made to bear the cost of the additional security at match venues, as in most cases, their fans were responsible for the reported cases of hooliganism.
“If we want to organise football well, then we have to spend money. Nobody liked the way things were going.
“Clubs have to bear the extra cost because that is what the rule says and at the same time, they are responsible for those troubles”, Abubakar added.
