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 reform, which began last year is having a 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 1 January to 31 December, 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 1 January 2013 to 31 December, 2013, during which the 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.