As LMC, NASD OTC sign MoU in Lagos
In a move aimed at transforming Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) clubs ownership from governments to community-based and public subscription rights, the League Management Committee (LMC) and NASD OTC Securities Exchange yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Lagos.
Speaking at the occasion, which took place at the Protea hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer of NASD OTC Securities Exchange, Bola Ajomale said his organization shared the belief that the country’s football clubs could harness the power of the capital market and the passion of sports-loving Nigerians to develop reliable funding channels.
“At a time that state and federal governments are seeking to reorder their expenditure patterns, it is appropriate for the LMC to look at allowing private and public investment play a bigger role in the financing of the most popular sport in Nigeria and indeed, the rest of the world.
“Like other commodity, football clubs have rising and falling fortunes, and can live or die based on foresight of their managers. Soccer may be a passion but it is a business like any other,” Ajomale stated.
The Chairman of LMC, Shehu Dikko, described the occasion as ‘historic’, saying that it was a step towards realizing the vision nursed by the LMC in providing a strong structure for the NPFL clubs ownership.
“It is a journey that has been long but potentially fruitful to the league, the clubs, our partners, NASD, corporate Nigerian and the general football stakeholders.
“The need to standardise the NPFL Club Ownership structure in line with what are obtained in some more prosperous leagues such as those in Germany, Spain and coming closer home-North Africa has since been appreciated by the LMC hence we took steps to seek the actualization.”
Dikko added: “It is in the light of the services that NASD will offer the LMC towards achieving the commercialization of NPFL clubs, and also in opening doors of opportunities in the private sector to our clubs that the LMC has today granted NASD the right of Official Supporter of the NPFL at no financial cost.”
