Association of Professional Footballers of Nigeria
(APFON), the umbrella body of professional football players in the country has
heaped praises on the management of Kano Pillars Football Club to provide a
financial performance guarantee to the
League Management Company (LMC) in line with registration requirements for
participation in the 2013/14 Glo Premier League season.
Provision of quarterly financial performance guarantee of
N25m is one of the conditions Clubs must meet to be licensed to participate in
the league and Kano Pillars on Tuesday beat the Match Day 9 deadline clubs were
mandated to comply or face sanctions which include points’ deduction.
“We are very pleased with the development and it is a
demonstration of good faith by the Management of Kano Pillars to have taken practical
steps towards guaranteeing players and other personnel wages by posting the
financial bond” declared Austin Popo, Secretary of APFON. He said the step by
Pillars sends a positive signal to Football Clubs administrators and asserted
that Club administrators must treat their Players and Coaches as assets and not
as liabilities, as this is the only way they can place appropriate value and
key into the reforms orchestrated by the LMC to reposition professional
football in Nigeria”.
To the other Clubs that are yet to complete this
important requirement for registration, Popo said “the Players Union wishes to
advice all the other Clubs in the NPFL to follow in the footsteps of Kano
Pillars by urgently initiating steps if they haven’t begun the process of securing
the financial performance guarantee”.
“It is important to state that the NPFL needs to deliver
in a number of key areas, one of which is on- field quality, which can only be
guaranteed by timely payment of Players and Coaches remunerations and other
benefits available”.
The financial performance guarantee seeks to make Clubs
demonstrate a capacity to meet their financial obligations to players, coaches,
other personnel and vendors. Proven defaults in payables will result in the LMC
invoking the bond conditions to offset any determinable financial liability of
the defaulting club in addition to any other sanction the LMC may impose.
APFON has been in the lead of a campaign to recover from
various Clubs, claims of over N500m in unpaid salaries, sign-off fees and
bonuses of players dating back to over six seasons and Popo in the statement
commending Pillars urged Clubs to expand their revenue generation capacity to
meet demands of running a profitable and stable professional league club.
"The
Players Union further wishes to advice the Clubs to explore additional and
alternative means of generating revenue outside of government funding such as
engaging their communities and fans towards attracting more people to the
stadium and commercializing their operations, especially those Clubs that
already enjoy huge attendance. There really is no reason why Clubs cannot
guarantee the needed attendance, sponsorship and other commercial revenues to
run their clubs as a profitable business
if they set their minds to it", the players union representative declared.
Culled from LMC
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