The recent proposal pegging players’ minimum wage in the elite Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) at N2 million from next season has elicited diverse reactions, with many querying its viability. CHRISTIAN OKPARA writes that as salutary as the move is, it can only succeed if the league is commercially viable.

Modern football is one of the sporting activities capable of turning children from poor homes into multimillionaires. The riches in the modern game, unlike in the past when the game was played for prestige and/or in defence of town, regional, or national pride, are such that parents now find ways to get their children into the game.

In the developed world, footballers’ earnings are primarily determined by a club’s valuation of their talent, expected contribution to the club’s aspirations, and commercial or brand power. Elite players command massive salaries due to competitive bidding wars among wealthy clubs, driven by revenue.

Portuguese superstar, Cristiano Ronaldo, is currently the world’s highest-paid player with an estimated weekly wage of $4 million to £3.4 million per week at Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr. He is followed by Lionel Messi at Inter Miami (around £1.1 million per week) and Karim Benzema of Al-Ittihad (over £865,000 per week).

Erling Haaland, who plays for England’s Manchester City, earns £525,000 per week, while Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid), Harry Kane (Bayern Munich) and Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) earn £518,000, £414,000 and £400,000 per week, respectively.

These humongous salaries attract elite players to the biggest football clubs, as they seek to maximise their financial gain from their talents.

In contrast, many players in the Nigerian Premier Football League (NPFL) still earn as little as N150,000 (excluding other allowances), which was the minimum wage prescribed by the league governing body until the end of last season.

However, there are some top talents in the NPFL who earn as much as N1.5 million or more. But these sums pale into insignificance when compared with what obtains in most of the other leagues overseas.

The poor wage package and overall poor welfare structure of the Nigerian league, according to experts, are the main reasons the country’s best players abandon the NPFL for greener pastures overseas at the earliest opportunity.

For instance, East Africa, especially Tanzania and Ethiopia, has become a new attraction for Nigerian players because it offers significantly higher wages than NPFL clubs.

For instance, former Bendel Insurance goalkeeper, Amas Obasogie, dumped the Benin Arsenal for the Ethiopian club Fasil Kenema, where the average monthly salary of top stars is about $7,000.

The Super Eagles goalkeeper has since left Ethiopia for Singida Black Stars in the Tanzanian Premier League, which pays top-tier foreign players and national team stars between $3,000 and $7,000 per month, with elite players at prominent clubs occasionally exceeding this range.

Faced with the naira’s weak purchasing power and the poor welfare package offered by most Nigerian clubs, it has become difficult for the NPFL to retain its top stars, who seek pasture anew overseas at every given opportunity.

It was in a bid to curb the exodus of the country’s top stars from the NPFL that the National Sports Commission (NSC) and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) introduced landmark structural and financial reforms for the league last week.

Among other things, to boost clubs’ finances, starting with the 2026/27 campaign, the league champion will receive N1 billion in prize money, with the runners-up taking home N500 million and the third-placed team N300 million.

The minimum wage for top-flight players was set at N2 million per month to boost living standards and reduce the exodus of talent.

To boost the clubs’ earnings, the NSC and the NPFL said they are finalising plans to return the league to mainstream television to attract increased commercial investment and fan engagement.

As part of the fund drive, the NPFL recently inaugurated a committee headed by a former director general of the NSC, Alhassan Yakmut, to overhaul the NPFL’s commercial architecture and transform it into a financially sustainable, commercially viable, and globally competitive league.

But as laudable as the new wage regime prescribed by the NSC and the NFF is, some stakeholders are wondering where the clubs, most of which are government-owned, will get the funds to meet wage demands and take care of their other obligations, including logistics and ancillary expenses.

For instance, NPFL clubs are permitted to register a minimum of 25 players and a maximum of 35 players for their first team each season.

Additionally, they are allowed to register up to five youth players (under 18) who have been with the club’s youth team for at least six months.

So, if a club registers 25 players per season, its minimum monthly wage bill will be N50 million, totalling N500 million per year.

When this is added to the club’s movement to match venues, including flight and hotel bills per week times 38 weeks of the season, as well as other expenses, an average NPFL club may find it difficult to survive a full season with anything less than N3 billion.

So, the NPFL prize money pales into insignificance when compared to the club’s wage bill. And then, in a league of 20 clubs, only one of them will win the N1 billion at the end of the year.

A former member of the NFF board, Chris Green, who is currently the chairman of Rivers United Football Club of Port Harcourt, sees the new wage decreed by the NSC and NFF as unrealistic unless they are willing to support the clubs financially.

The Rivers State Sports Commissioner said in a recent interview that it would be difficult for clubs in the league to live above board.

According to Green: “The NSC should be ready to give each club at least N100 million if they want the clubs to pay each player at least N2 million monthly,” he said.

A former JIB Rocks of Jos defender, Theodore Chukwuemeka, sees the directive as capable of rejuvenating the league if fully implemented by all the clubs.

He, however, said that it looks “unrealisable on paper, viewed with the way most of the clubs are run.”

Chukwuemeka said: “Many of these clubs find it difficult to pay their players the pittance that they are contracted to earn every month. So, how will they then pay N2 million now?

“I know some former players who are still being owed several months of salaries, even years after retiring from the game; these clubs are not in a hurry to settle the debts.

“Again, what happens to players in clubs, whose salaries are tied to their states’ civil service payroll?

“Will you compel a club like Bendel Insurance that already has a players’ wage structure ranging from N350,000 to N750,000, to increase it to N2 million in the same state civil service?”

The Chairman of Sporting Lagos, Godwin Enarkhena, who is also a member of the NPFL Commercial Reforms Committee, maintained that what the National Sports Commission has done is a proposal aimed at helping the growth of the league.

He described it as a good development, “especially when this is coming from a man, NSC Chairman, Shehu Dikko, who knows where the shoe pinches.”

He said that the question of whether the “clubs can meet this obligation to their players and staff would be akin to putting the cart before the horse since it’s only a proposal.

“However, I think it’s possible if the government will support the clubs financially, and most importantly, if it’s backed by a long-term plan.”

On the fate of clubs owned by state governments, whose salaries are paid through their states’ civil service platforms, Enarkhena, whose club just returned to the NPFL, said: “Sports is not civil service and the players and managements are not operating under the civil service structure; they earn more than regular civil servants.

“All it takes is for the government at the centre to provide the financial support, and all will be well.”

The former chairman of the defunct MFM Football Club agreed that there are many challenges “facing the league, in all ramifications”.

“It hasn’t hit the heights that many believe it should, but like I’ve always said, while we’re not where we should be, we’re not where we used to be, even though I’ll admit that the progress could be faster.”

The Director of Football at ABS Football Club, Ilorin, Alloy Chukwuemeka, sees the directive as a welcome development that will help raise the standards of the Nigerian domestic League and, by extension, the broader local football ecosystem.

He, however, said that the “challenge of meeting the standard by clubs depends on how much involvement the League body NPFL will be; the financial support the NPFL will give to the teams through sponsorship money and other incentives.”

The former executive secretary of the NPFL Club Owners Association said that the clubs, both privately owned and those sponsored by state governments, must diversify their marketing efforts to secure additional funding beyond their normal monthly allocations to meet this new rule.

He said: “Government-owned clubs must be aware that football operates in a different way from the bureaucratic system, and so they must try to balance ownership and control with meeting basic requirements or demands/conditions of modern football.

Like Enarkhena, Chukwuemeka sees some improvement in the NPFL’s standards. He, however, said that poor officiating and fans’ unrest still need to be tackled.

“The NPFL should also find a way of arresting the frequent exodus of quality players, who dump the league in search of greener pastures abroad,” he said.

The 2026/27 NPFL season is tentatively scheduled to begin the weekend of August 27–29 and run until May 28, 2027.