By Chigozie Chukwuleta
The renewal of George Aluo’s tenure as Chairman of the Nigeria National League (NNL) has been met with optimism, and commendations. In this exclusive interview with Newspathfinder.com, he promised amongst other things to deliver quality teams to NPFL and prioritize the welfare of players and coaches in the league.
Excerpts……
Q. Congratulations on the extension of your tenure as the chairman, how would you describe the first term?
A. It had been a very wonderful first term. When I was made the chairman of the Nigerian National League, I met a league that people called all manner of names. From the cash and carry league, the glorified amateur league, street soccer and all of that. As a seasoned journalist that has been out there in television and criticizing, I needed to do something to prove to Nigerians that journalists can do it. As someone who has traveled far and wide in the course of this job, covered the Olympics, World Cup, Commonwealth games and the likes, I mean I have seen it all in football and I knew that as a journalist I wouldn’t want to disappoint my constituency. It is not just about writing or going to the television to talk, it is about when you are given the opportunity do you actually make a difference?. For me, I felt we would turn the league around, do reforms. The biggest challenge as a journalist that I know that is facing our domestic football is that of officiating and we did something about it. Before we came on board the referees were owed for 2 to 3 years of the previous seasons. And he who pays the piper dictates the tune. So, first we made sure that referees who were owed indemnities were paid. I inherited a staff in NNL that were owed 4 months, the first thing we did was to find money and clear that debt. Even though as a journalist I do not have all the money in the world but I had to rise to the occasion and ensured that the staff were paid because you need to motivate the staff and the Secretariat to get the best out of them. Then you need to motivate the referees to get the best out of them so having settled that I called all the clubs. I said hey this is the 21st century, you cannot be talking of seizing someone’s camera because you don’t want them to take matches live, because now it’s in our rules that matches must come live. Then we got a company that started streaming our matches and the fine for not allowing them to stream your match was 1 million so they knew we were serious. The clubs gradually embraced the reforms, so the matches are now on television, people are seeing it, referees are paid their indemnities. Clubs started winning on the road and interestingly we had a youth team, Beyond Limits football academy that were in this league. I ensured that those kids were not robbed, 14, 15, 16 year old kids. I mean how would you rob such a team. I said not under my watch and at the end of the day, Beyond Limits won the league and I was very happy. And you can now see that last year an NNL team won the federation cup, this year NNL got to the FA cup finals. We inculcated the winning mentality into these teams, we brought the coaches to the classroom, did preseason seminar, did the same for the media. So we brought a whole lot of changes into the game. So I want to say that the reforms are just starting.
Q. Reward for good work they say is more work. What more do you think you can do?
A . Now that President Ibrahim Gusau has given us the opportunity to continue we are going to do more. What the tenure extension calls for us is extra hard work and we will deliver. I want to thank the NFF President Ibrahim Gusau and the board members for electing to bring us back. He must have come under pressure from people who wanted this job and you know in Nigeria even when you are performing well people will still want to bring you down but I have an NFF president who believes in the best. He has given us all the support we needed because without him in the first place we wouldn’t be able to achieve all the reforms. When people go to him to complain or anything he will call me and say Chairman go and do the right thing. NFF President has never told me to cut corners and when you now have a President that is fully behind you, you get all the support you need. If you look at it, this is a President who didn’t interfere even when some people were telling me oh if Zamfara Utd goes on relegation the President will not be happy with you but that is not true. President said yes, I am from Zamfara but if the club deserves to go on relegation then so be it. So now I know that this man will not call me to interfere, he simply wants the best and that has emboldened me to always make the right decision. I want to thank him and the board members for giving us another tenure, myself, the NPFL and the NLO. And you can see the NPFL Hon. Gbenga Elegbeleye is doing fantastically well. The NPFL has taken a different shape and those of us below his league now want to emulate what is happening in the NPFL. also look at the NLO, His Excellency Silas Agara is equally doing well alongside Shola the CEO. Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau has picked a team that is ready to drive his vision of changing the face of Nigerian domestic football.
Q. Expectedly you will do more as you did in your first tenure. But what will you do differently this time?
A. The second opportunity now calls for consolidation and that consolidation means taking the league to the private sector. I didn’t want to rush to the private sector from the beginning because we needed to do the reforms, package the league into something Nigerians would be proud of then you will now take the league to the private sector to attract them. Nobody out there in the private sector wants to put money in a bad product. Two years we have been able to do reforms, now we can proudly go and make a presentation to corporate bodies and say these are our achievements, this is where the league is at the moment, this is the property that is now worth over a billion naira and we now intend to drive marketing aggressively. We have reached out to a few marketing consultants, given them a mandate and mark my words they are going to get results. What we are doing is there for the Nigerian public to see. And again the media which is my primary constituency has been supportive, they have been able to drive it. Let me tell you football is all about media events that is why CAF and FIFA does not toy with the media, the fans and the referees and even more importantly the players. So if we are doing all of this and the media is not giving us the support, Nigerians will not know where we are. So I want to thank my colleagues for all the support. They’re saying because he is a journalist that is why they are supporting him, yes. The journalists are my primary constituency and I am happy that I am enjoying their support. So like I said it is time to consolidate, to take the game to the private sector so that when they put money into the system we will have a better league. We can now pay the referees better, the clubs can now pay the coaches and players better because this game is all about the players and the coaches. Their welfare is paramount so this is where my vision moving forward.
Q. How’s the NNL Super 8 2025 tournament. Has it lived up to your expectations so far?
A. More than, because my expectations was that given what happened during the regular season that the competition here would be very high. The clubs have not disappointed me at all in that regard. Until the very last round of matches no team qualified and no team dropped out until the final group games which is separating those who will remain in NNL and those headed to NPFL. So, that shows you how competitive it is this year. Before the last group matches in Enugu last year we had already known those who would qualify but until this last round of matches no team had secured six points that would have been good enough too secure the ticket. So the game has gone into the wire that shows you that it is highly competitive. The facilities have been top notch, the Stephen Keshi stadium here like I expected is good, it has allowed the players to express themselves. The only shortcoming that would have come was the Austin JayJay Okocha and you know the stadium in Ogwashi ukwu, the rain exposed that. But we took the proactive step of going to look for an alternative venue immediately and we found one in the now Southern Delta University in Ozoro, good facility, in fact one of the best in the country lush green. So for me all the expectations has been met even the weather has been friendly and I want to thank God. This is July and in this part of the country it rains heavily but God has been kind to us. It rained the day there were no matches and the day that there were matches, we had clement weather. So God is behind what we are doing and he is blessing our little efforts with success.
Q. Finally, the structure of the super 8 and the relegation is a source of concern for some people. Dividing the teams into groups at this level, are we more concerned about teams getting promoted from regions and balancing instead of getting quality four going into the NPFL. Do you think the same way
A. No I think differently, when we came, what we grabbed is not what is going on now. When we came there was relegation play off, then we went back to the drawing board and I told my board members that we need to make some changes. So we cancelled the relegation play offs, now clubs are relegated directly. But for the Super 8 now we are pursuing reforms we have not gotten 100 percent, we are not there yet. Yes clubs are winning on the road but even at that I still believe we can achieve more. I am the happiest person with what is happening in the super 8 because when you manage to top your conference because we play in four conferences A, B, C and D. When you manage to come out of those conferences there is this home advantage syndrome in our football, you’ll enjoy those home advantages. You now come to where jungle matures in the super 8 and come and show how you manage to get to this place. When you get here you now see that this place is a leveler. where all clubs play on a level playing ground. You can see the level of officiating here, it tells you that this is a good advertisement for Nigerian football where referees are on top of the situation. There are still a few complaints but they are very nonsensical because nobody here can complain about the officiating.
Q. So are you against teams from different conferences playing themselves to get into…
A. (Cuts in) If you come from different conferences, for there to be equity and fairness you then say two must come from this particular conference and two must come from this particular conference and then they go into the NPFL. That is the concept and I think it is working out for us. Looking at it those who come from conference A, B C or D that got there on merit in the last two years no NNL club that has been promoted has gone back to relegation. In fact Ikorodu City almost got the Confederation ticket. That shows you we are taking quality teams into the NPFL.
