The League Management Company (LMC) has reacted to the
latest ranking of Nigeria as the 4th Strongest League in Africa by the
International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) and said it
is a confirmation that the league reforms began last year is having positive
impact.
Chairman of LMC, Hon. Nduka Irabor said, “we are
delighted because the gains of Nigeria on the listing is a validation of the
work we have done these past months and we are encouraged by such good tiding
coming from an independent international assessor”.
On-going reforms in the Nigeria Professional Football
League (NPFL) was initiated in the last one year which falls within the
research capture period of January 1st to December 31st 2013 during which
Nigeria climbed seven steps from 60th to 53rd strongest league in the world
with total points of 332.50.
According to the LMC Chairman, “This ranking portends
good for the league; it is a huge positive for the league especially now that
the Clubs have agreed to comply with the Licensing regulations, that the
commercial corporate community is showing increasing interest in partnering
with the league and at such a time the league has drawn huge followership from
the youth population on social media”.
Irabor sees the ranking as a precursor of the new
direction the League has been moving to and he enjoined the Clubs, their
players and all stakeholders to build on the gains of the past season to
further reposition the league. He said that while improved ranking hasn’t been
the motivation for the on-going re-engineering of all aspects of the league,
“We are gratified that the effort is yielding positive results as seen in this
internationally acclaimed research that presented the top 125 strongest leagues
of the world. We are indeed heading
back-up where we belong".
IFFHS, a research organization based in Lausanne,
Switzerland computes its annual rating on the basis of all National League, FA
Cup, Continental and Intercontinental results of the clubs from countries. The
recent rating, according to IFFHS covers the period from January 1st 2013 to
December 31st, 2013 during which the League Management Company (LMC) organized
the NPFL sponsored by Globacom, one of Africa’s leading telecommunication
firms.
Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco are the African leagues ranked
ahead of Nigeria on 31st, 46th and 47th respectively.
Culled from LMC
