• LMC holds two Super Four tourneys in Kaduna, Uyo
Defending champions, Enyimba of Aba, will begin the defence of their Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) title on February 21, the League Management Company (LMC) announced yesterday.

The official fixtures for the season would be drawn on January 23.

In a statement made available to The Guardian yesterday, the LMC announced a comprehensive calendar of activities for the 2015/16 Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) season, which provides two rounds of Super Four tournaments before the regular season, which will end on October 2.

Before the season kicks off, the league managers will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) with participating clubs, pre-season and mid-season seminars/capacity development programmes, stadium inspections and club licensing core processes have all been detailed in the calendar.

The LMC said the 2015/2016 season was “drawn up based on usual consultations with our participating clubs and proposed fixtures of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Federation Cup.

“We have, following various consultations, been properly guided to streamline the activities of the NPFL, the NFF Federations Cup as well as CAF competition dates,” the LMC said in a statement yesterday.

The statement added that “provision has been made for the NFF Club Licensing compliance and cut-off dates inserted to ensure compliance by clubs as required by CAF.”

The first round of the NPFL Super Four will hold in Kaduna from January 20 to 24, while the second round will be played in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, from February 1 to 5.

“The rationale for the two rounds of NPFL Super Four is to get our clubs that will be playing on the continent to play at least six competitive games from the two tournaments to sufficiently prime them to reasonable match fitness.

“The tournament will, as usual, be played on a round-robbing structure,” it said.

The preliminary rounds of the CAF club competitions will hold on the weekend of February 12 to 14.

On the implementation of the club licensing requirements, the LMC said “all the clubs have been given a cut-off date of February 10 to ensure the settlement of any overdue payments to players and coaches arising from the 2014/15 season and or provide an acceptable financial guarantee instruments to secure the payments as well as tentative payment plan from the clubs proprietors.”