Chairman of Nigerian Women’s Football League, Ms. Nkechi Obi has described commercialization as a critical component of growth for women football.
The chairperson who led her team to launch the Women Football Rising Initiative says the platform will be delivered in accordance with global best practices and strategies that can deliver the desired results.
Nkechi Obi, whose Board hosted its first Annual General Assembly in Lagos, informed that: “Despite being saddled with the responsibility of driving growth of professional women’s football in Nigeria-building on the success that has been achieved in the past, will leverage on the global rise in the women’s game and women’s sports.
“The task of delivering monumental growth of the league’s by the new Board, she hinted required strategic thinking to ensure the fill commercialization of the league, the development of frameworks to increase the number of girls playing football, and a clear guaranteed pathway for young talented girls to become professional players.
“The NWFL Board also recognizes that the professional game and its commercialization is critical to growth of women’s football, which is evident in the number of national team players that started their careers in the league and progressed to playing in foreign club.
The Board will grow the level of female participation in football, improve on its quality and capacity of personnel around the league, including players, coaches, officials and administrators.
“For development and sustainability, the NWFL Board will institute governance frameworks, and also harness revenue opportunities at the league level and provide guidance to clubs to help them harness their commercial value. All this will be achieved through the innovatives under the Women’s Football Rising platform.”
To further deliver on the Women’s Football Rising, “The Board has adopted FIFA’s 5 Pillars for Women’s Football Development and domesticated it into its 5-ponged Execution Strategy for the women’s game, that will see the NWFL develop and grow the game, communicate and commercialize the league, govern and lead with professionalism, educate and empower women through football.”
Meanwhile, the NWFL will for the first time embrace and promote the significance of sustainability in sports in general and women’s football in particular.
“By highlighting environmental and social sustainability considerations, the Board will strategically position the NWFL and its leagues to undertake meaningful programmes and activations.
“To this effect, the NWFL is partnering Sustainable Sports Africa Ltd, a globally renowned, environmental, social, governance (ESG) and sustainable professionals, and have agreed to deploy their extensive network and expertise to assist the NWFL to design its sustainability programme in order to attract new commercial sponsors and institutional partners from within and outside Nigeria, with the goal to make the NWFL the first sustainable women’s league in Africa.
“Lastly, the NWFL goal is to ensure that the league becomes a tool to drive nation building, to reduce the number of out-of-school girls, to foster gender equality and inclusion, to promote learning and education, and provide livelihood for women, using football as the platform to achieving these.”
Nkechi Obi further thanked stakeholders, professional women’s club who have committed to the NWFL Board’s agenda, as she put on record the professionalism exhibited by the management of the NWFL led by the Chief Operating Officer, Ms Modupe Shabi.
Source /BSNSports/NWFL Media
