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If you’re a Nigerian football fan, the outcome of Monday’s 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifying match against Benin Republic will surely trigger memories from two years ago; one which everyone is so desperate to suppress.
Nigeria’s participation at the FIFA World Cup; the sport’s biggest carnival, isn’t a matter any stakeholder will continue to gloss over.
The financial implications are immense for the Football Federation, players and their clubs but small and medium-scale businesses carry the weight too.
As one of the biggest stakeholders in Nigerian Sports, Brila Media Limited has lent its voice to almost every conversation driven towards the promotion and enhancement of the industry.
But as the Gabonese Referee blew his final whistle, two fundamental questions popped into my head: Why is our biggest football brand failing? Is this 2022 all over again?
In 2022 the NFF did not only lose $1.5million due to participating teams at the World Cup in Qatar. Our Super Eagles also missed the $ 9 million for teams entering the group stages.
One or two NPFL clubs would have received alerts of $10,000 every day as long as their player stayed in the tournament and $180,000 just for appearing on the squad list in the group stage, per statista.com.
However, these are just the small perks. The bigger picture is the scale of marketing and partnerships, the image or brand building and the prospect of investments and profits projected – top to bottom – in the value chain.
As a sports media Intrapreneur dedicated to showcasing the positives in our dear nation, I must publicly admit that the decisions made by others make it difficult to do so on some occasions.
Our luck with how we treat matters regarding sports will run out eventually because we now stand on the precipices. Structure, leadership, budgeting, and professionalism are just a few things that must be prioritised, for us to get it right again.
