Social Proprietors or Investors For Our Football Clubs?

There are outcry for private ownership of football clubs in Nigeria. The reasons for these are justifiable when you take into account that 95% of the clubs are state-owned with the exception of MFM FC, Ikorodu United, Ifeanyi Ubah United and Giwa FC - Expelled from the League)
There have been long-standing issues with state ownership, one of them being welfare challenges - especially of the players and coaches. Majority of the clubs depends on the state government for their funding, and if you are conversant with the trend within Nigeria's state of the economy, you will realise that the state governments are struggling to pay the wages of civil servant .Therefore the  players and coaches salaries are probably the least on their minds. 

For the average Nigerian League follower, the  ideal is for the majority of the clubs to be privately owned for two main reasons; firstly, the private clubs have not had any history of owing their staff and secondly, the state government can focus on other pertinent issues.


Private ownership of clubs is not new to the Nigerian football clubs set up. There were two types of private ownership as identified in the 80's-90's, they are individual and corporate organisation club ownership.

For the individual ownership, we had the likes of Late Chief Moshood Abiola club - Abiola Babes, Sir Dan Osakwe - Flash Flamingoes, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu - Iwuanyanwu Nationale, Late Chief Lekan Salami - IICC Shooting Stars (Now 3SC ), Chief Teluwo Vigilante Insurance Professionals, Late Chief Doyin - Femo Scorpion,Chief Oscar Udoji - Udoji United e.t.c 

The corporate organisation ownership had the likes of Leventis United, BCC Lions of Gboko, ACB, Julius Berger, First Bank, IBWA, NNB ( New Nigerian Bank of Benin ) e.t.c. However, the Corporate Organisation clubs were set up as a means of social responsibility rather than being a corporate entity on its own.

When you take a look at the cross section of the names of the former club proprietors, noticeably some of the clubs were named after the owners which leads me to the next point. The spine or the existence of the clubs is solely dependent on the owners, so the owner funds the club directly by providing money for the welfare of players. In some cases, they provide accommodation for the staffs which is a good gesture . However, as it was with the club owners above when they all pulled out the plug, the club dies straight away. The question is -in our quest for private ownership do we want social proprietors or business investors?


I think a club should not just be built around an individual rather it should be set up as a proper organisation with the required structure which I will list below:


Chief Executive Officer 
Registered Office
Marketing 
Media Department
Human resources


Chief Executive Officer The club owners should engage the services of a CEO with proper pedigree, track record and exposure within the corporate world. Usually, the culture among football club owners is to appoint someone who more or less manages the club rather than add some value to it. For Example, a club owner may put his wife's brother to be the General Manager of the club. As stated above a competent CEO should be employed to set the right structure and a work ethic culture within the club. The CEO should also be able to attract private investors to the club.

Registered Office A club must have a proper office setting that gives it an air of professionalism. The office should be the operational hub of the club.

Marketing This should handle all issues relating to the packaging of the club. This department should be able to source out for investors into the club.

Media Department 
The club should have a functioning media department that will take care of all media related issues.

Human resources The HR department should oversee all the various aspect of employment, compliance with labour laws, employment standards, administration of employment standards, administration of employment benefits and a certain aspect of recruitment and dismissal.


The structures above are the minimum that is required to keep a football club going. I have visited 3 top division Swedish Clubs that are quite small  in size and the above mentioned  structures were all they had to keep the club going.   When football proprietors invest in structures and systems, the club will outlive them and peradventure they decide to sell the club, it will be more commercially viable but that depends other variables.

Aliko Dangote - the Nigeria business mogul was criticised for his interest in a particular foreign club and not in a local Nigeria club. Let face it ,he is a businessman and he is looking for investment opportunities and not looking to be a social proprietor. If the Nigerian football environment is viable and enabling, he will show interest and perhaps encourage other businessmen to do likewise. The League board in Nigeria have a responsibility to create a business friendly and conducive environment.