At a review of the last season statistics and projection for the new season, chairman of the NPFL, Gbenga Elegbeleye, said the league was determined to establish a traditional period for the competition to enable clubs, players, match officials and scouts plan their own calendar.

He recalled that the board kept to its calendar for the last season which began on August 31, 2024, and concluded on May 25, 2025.

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“This is the first time in many years, perhaps since the start of the new era Nigeria Premier Football League in 2005, (20 years) that a date for kick-off and ending will be faithfully implemented. That is a commitment we made and a promise delivered,” the NPFL chairman stated.

He declared that “Today, we are also here to announce that the 2025/26 season will be commencing on August 22, 2025 and will be completed on May 24, 2026. This is to maintain a calendar we have now established from the last season.”

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Suleiman Hadejia, an unknown football analyst based in Kano recently displayed high level of ignorance and poor hatchet job for his pay masters when he linked TotalPromotion with the brewing face-off between the new Interim Management Committee, IMC, and the club owners.

Apparently displaying the Biblical hand of Esau and voice of Jacob mentality, Hadejia lambasted the sports minister, Sunday Dare, accusing him of sundry issues including failure to foist Seyi Akinwunmi on the Nigeria Football Federation board during the Edo Congress and the creation of the IMC with his (Dare’s) kinsman, Hon Gbenga Elegbeleye as chairman.

Unknown to this errant boy, Dare is from Ogbomosho in Oyo State while Elegbeleye is from Akoko in Ondo State.

He also accused the minister of trying to bring back TotalPromotion, using Davidson Owumi as the contact point.

“Their mission is to use their money to play the more you look,  the less you see, then hoodwink people to believe in their fire brigade approach of abridged league,” Hadejia wrote. “After the fire brigade abridged league which he wants to end in May, he will force the NFF to retain Elegbeleye as the permanent chairman of the league before he leaves office on May 29.

“To achieve the agenda and for TotalPromotion to reclaim the TV rights, Owumi is bringing their money into the league by quoting unknown people as sponsors of the league using 200m carrot and stick to attract clubs to key into it.”

But it is obvious that TotalPromotion does not need Owumi in the IMC if he wants to claim the Title or TV rights which it bid for and won.

TotalPromotion also has the right to legally fight for its Title, if he chooses to go that way as it is already in court even before the concocted IMC and the shenanigans.

It is not for fun when the apex court, Supreme Court, described the LMC as fraudulent in its judgement this year.

But the irony of Nigeria Football is like an out of the ring boxing promoter will see his boxer. The IMC has failed to look at the facts before them in taking decisions. They have no iota of respect for law and state of law as it affects their actions and behaves like the ostrich which buries its head in sand while the rest of its body is vividly miles off.

IMC’s antic to hide names of sponsor/s, while announcing N10 billion naira partner that holds all their products under one roof for that sum is unbelievable. In today’s value of naira, the present COO of IMC had N3 billion in 2012 for Title right. At today’s naira value to pound sterling, the much flaunted 10 billion naira sponsor intake is far less than the naira value of One  billion naira per year that Owumi  got for just one product in 2012.

Owumi’s tenure as an elected Chairman of Premier League run by NFLL in 2012 had better value from deal on one of its products that was done in the open unlike  this dead of the night deal being attempted to be foisted on a public owned body.

The whole illegal pack of cards will fall soonest with just a single legal pin given that the foundation of the IMC  is built on quicksand.

It would have been better for the said Hadejia and some other football writers to read all facts and legal imperatives epitomised by court judgements and write facts that will advance and rebuild the worrisome structure of football which all Nigerians pray for.

The sacked LMC should stop distorting facts, because the reason they were kicked out of office today is the Supreme Court judgement and TotalPromotion was never  a party in that case.

Owumi literally went on his knees begging TotalPromotion in 2012 to deploy its contacts to get them sponsors. The outfit bid in an open exercise, paid billing fees for interested parties as published in papers, competed with GLO and won. Subsequently, it sold the right for N3 billion and passed the whole money to NFLL as TotalPromotion only owns the title.

Ironically Owumi who was the chairman at that time is trying to ignore the legal facts and conjuring names for same product with same ingredients.

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