By Maxwell Kumoye
Nigeria’s sports infrastructure crisis has been brutally exposed, with veteran broadcaster and journalist Mitchell Obi raising a critical question: how can a nation with about 26 stadiums boast of only one facility currently approved to host an international football match under FIFA and CAF standards?
Obi, a former President of AIPS Africa, said the situation goes beyond decaying infrastructure. According to him, it reflects decades of failed planning, poor maintenance culture and an obsolete philosophy that treats stadiums as monuments rather than economic assets.
His verdict is damning: Nigeria has built stadiums, but has failed to build a sports economy.
According to Obi, only the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo presently meets the requirements to stage international football sanctioned by the world and continental football governing bodies. For a country of about 230 million people, he described the situation as indefensible.
“If Lionel Messi were to play in Nigeria tomorrow, there is only one venue in the entire country where the match could be sanctioned,” Obi observed.
That single fact, he argued, should provoke an uncomfortable but necessary national conversation. Nigeria is not short of stadiums. What it lacks are functional, commercially viable and internationally compliant stadiums.
Over several decades, the country has invested billions of naira in sports infrastructure, including the 60,500-capacity Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, the 45,000-capacity National Stadium in Lagos and the 25,000-capacity Liberty Stadium in Ibadan. These facilities once symbolised Nigeria’s sporting ambition. Today, many have become monuments to that ambition.
Obi’s criticism extends beyond the physical deterioration of the facilities. He questioned the economic logic of maintaining stadiums that remain largely idle for most of the year while taxpayers bear the huge cost of their upkeep.
He noted that some stadiums are used for only a handful of events annually, leaving them inactive for long periods. Even more worrying, he said, is the poor commercial value placed on some of the facilities.
According to him, a stadium with a capacity of tens of thousands being rented out for between N200,000 and N300,000 is not running as a sports business.
“That is not revenue. That is embarrassment,” Obi declared.
And that, he stressed, is at the heart of the problem. Nigeria’s stadium challenge is not just that the structures are deteriorating. The business model behind them is fundamentally flawed.
“We built stadiums as monuments. We should have built them as economies,” he said.
For decades, governments have treated stadium development as mere construction projects – build a facility, host a tournament, stage ceremonies and wait for the next major event. Obi believes that model has failed woefully.
His alternative is to transform stadiums into the centrepiece of integrated sports and entertainment districts where football is just one component of a much larger commercial ecosystem.
Hotels, restaurants, shopping outlets, conference centres, gyms, cinemas, sports academies, sports science facilities, offices, residential developments and transport infrastructure could be built around major stadiums.
The objective, he explained, is simple: make the facility economically active every day of the year, not just on match days.
Obi believes the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja offers Nigeria its clearest opportunity to test this concept. Rather than continuing to treat the facility as a standalone stadium that requires periodic government intervention, he proposed converting its vast surroundings into a major sports and entertainment district.
Under his proposal, the stadium would be rehabilitated and upgraded to FIFA standards, while hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, conference and exhibition facilities, academies and sports science centres would be developed around it.
The result, he argued, would be a destination where people work, eat, shop, train, stay and attend entertainment events all year round. That, he said, is the difference between owning a stadium and owning a sports economy.
Obi cited developments around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London and Hollywood Park in Los Angeles as examples of how sporting facilities can anchor wider urban economies. He also referenced the Zamalek model in Cairo, where sports, membership and commercial activities have created a powerful ecosystem around the club.
Nigeria, he maintained, can no longer afford to see stadiums merely as venues for football matches. They must become hubs where business is transacted, jobs are created, investments are attracted and communities are energised.
The argument becomes even more significant in light of the Federal Government’s declared ambition to build a sports economy. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has mandated the National Sports Commission, under Chairman Shehu Dikko, to develop Nigeria’s sports economy.
But Obi warned that the ambition will remain mere political rhetoric if Nigeria continues to build or rehabilitate standalone stadiums without a sustainable economic model.
He stressed that a sports economy cannot be built on empty stadiums. Neither can Nigeria realistically aspire to host the FIFA World Cup, Olympic Games or other major international competitions while its existing infrastructure falls short of required standards.
Obi recalled that Nigeria’s 2020 sports master plan projected that the country could be ready to host the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games by 2030. With 2030 fast approaching, he believes Nigeria is not closer to that target. It may even be farther away.
“Not because we lack ambition. Because we built the wrong things,” he said.
That indictment, he noted, raises uncomfortable questions for governments at federal and state levels. How many stadiums currently being constructed or renovated will actually meet international standards? How many will generate enough revenue to sustain themselves? How many will still be functional five or ten years after the commissioning ceremony? And how many will once again become abandoned monuments after the politicians who built them have left office?
These, Obi said, are questions Nigeria can no longer avoid.
He argued that the country already has much of what it needs – land, stadiums, strategic locations and a huge population with a growing appetite for sports and entertainment. What has been lacking is a commercially intelligent model for putting those assets to work.
He also pointed to the African Collaborations Group (ACG), which emerged from the FIFA Task Force for Infrastructure Development in Africa established during the tenure of former FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura, as part of the expertise available to drive the new approach.
The choice facing Nigeria, according to him, is becoming increasingly stark.
Continue pouring public funds into stadiums that sit idle for most of the year, or transform those stadiums into commercially driven sports districts capable of generating revenue every day.
Nigeria, he said, does not need another stadium that looks impressive on commissioning day and becomes a financial burden afterwards. It needs sports infrastructure that can pay for itself.
It needs facilities that attract investment rather than consume government budgets. It needs stadiums that create businesses, jobs, tourism and sporting opportunities.
And above all, it needs to stop measuring sporting progress by the number of stadiums it owns.
Because, as Obi’s argument makes clear, a country can have 26 stadiums and still have nowhere to play.
The Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, he believes, should be the first major test of whether Nigeria is finally ready to abandon the old model.
The era of building stadiums as monuments must end. The era of building sports economies must begin.
