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Nigerian football can be made to yield vast returns on investment, organisers of the game in the country have been told.

Speakers at the
Nigerian International Football Expo, which held on Thursday, at the
Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Lagos, have canvassed for the running of
the game as business in order to maximise the full benefits accruable
from investing in it. The event, the first of its kind to hold in the
country, was jointly organised by two sports marketing companies, Fair
Play and Vantgarde. It drew attendance from the football and business
communities in Nigeria.

No free lunch

Usen Udoh, a senior
Director with Accenture, who presented a paper titled: ‘Remodelling the
football industry through public private partnerships (Infrastructure,
Management and Marketing)’, said if managers of football in Nigeria
want to attract sponsorship and money to the game from the private
sector, then they must talk about returns on investment. “There is no
free lunch,” he said. “Businesses exist to make profit, and in so far
as companies want to be in involved in CSR (Corporate Social
Responsibility), their primary aim is to make profit. So, if managers
of football want to attract sponsorship to the game, they must let the
companies know what is in it for them. They must talk about a plan,
balance sheet and they must talk about P and L (Profit and Loss).”

Need for branding

Alex Goma, the
Managing Director, PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc, who delivered a paper titled
‘Marketing Football in Nigeria: Media, Sponsorship, Events,
Merchandising and Endorsements’, spoke on the need for branding, noting
that the image of the game will determine whether players in the
private sector would be attracted. “In attracting the private sector,
branding plays a key role,” he said. “Organisations are mindful of the
kinds of bodies they go into partnership with. No company will go into
partnership with a body to sponsor an event that will erode their
brand. So, if football managers want to get sponsorship, they must up
their brand.”

Getting the right people and laws

In his paper,
‘Restructuring the regulatory framework for football business in
Nigeria’, Mumini Alao, the Managing Director of Complete
Communications, publishers of Complete Sports, expressed dismay with
the absence of a regulatory framework for football business in the
country. He advocated the need for such a framework, noting that the
present laws that regulate football constitute obstacles to effective
running of football as viable business.

Earlier in a keynote address, Patrick Ekeji, the Director General of
the National Sports Commission, said government is taking steps to
ensure that football and other sports thrive in the country, pointing
out that a starting point for those who insist that sports be properly
run is for them to ensure that only the right people get into the
various sports federations. “People need to appeal to governments
across the country to encourage their sons and daughters of quality to
get into sports associations so that we can begin to have some
professionalism,” he said.