Good day to all lovers of the People\u2019s Elephants home and abroad, especially those of you who can\u2019t wait for the season to start, rest assured August 28 is almost where, we will finally get to see if Enyimba\u2019s secrecy during the pre-season will bear fruits.<\/p>\n
I heard Ronaldinho might be coming out of retirement, maybe Enyimba has signed a player of similar reputation and have decided to keep him hidden as their trump card, all I can say is that come Sunday at the Bako Kontagora Stadium, all secrets will be revealed.<\/p>\n
Talking about secrets it\u2019s time to let you in on a matter that shouldn\u2019t be kept from the public eye but the club only prefers to celebrate birthdays and keep vital updates from the fans.<\/p>\n
Our city rivals Abia Warriors will use the Enyimba International Stadium to peruse their home games at the beginning of the season since the Umuahia Township Stadium is undergoing renovations, this is not a bad thing, however, the rate at which stadiums go out of commission in the League is alarming.<\/p>\n
No room for maintenance<\/strong> The recent one in the NPFL involved the teams participating in Continental competitions reaching out to NNL side Remo Stars for the use of their Stadium in Ikenne because it\u2019s one of the few FIFA standard stadiums in the country.<\/p>\n Other teams in Europe do this as well, a couple of days ago Ukrainian side Shakhtar and Chelsea came to an agreement that Stamford Bridge will be used for Shakhtar\u2019s League phase of the UEFA Champions League.<\/p>\n Coming back home, If all NPFL teams advance to the group stage of the continental competitions, there would be scheduling conflict for the Stadium use, Remo Stars themselves and the Remo Stars Ladies use this stadium even their academy side Beyond Limits play games in this stadium.<\/p>\n Even national teams like Super Falcons and Flamingoes occasionally use this stadium too.<\/p>\n If the organizers manage to get through the scheduling headache, there is the most important factor of all which is keeping the pitch in good condition for the next game.<\/p>\n The time frame which maintenance would be done is almost non-existent, even if the stadium managers work overtime, the wear and tear will get to the pitch eventually.<\/p>\n The only positive about the Stadium in Ikenne is that it is privately owned and Honorable Kunle Soname would not let his investment fall into ruins.<\/p>\n Lagos as an example<\/strong> There would be almost no breathing space for the stadium managers when it comes to maintaining the Onikan Stadium, some parts of the stadium are unkept, while construction is not exactly complete in some parts of the facility.<\/p>\n The burden on the stadium is about to increase and at the end of the day when it is no longer suitable for use it becomes another abandoned project.<\/p>\n It shouldn\u2019t be a surprise to Lagosians when the State football association announce that the stadium will undergo renovations before the start of next season due to what it will go through next season.<\/p>\n Consequences of Playing home away from home<\/strong> However, it seems Nigerian football is not done with the People\u2019s Elephants Stadium yet as Abia Warriors is set to utilize it for their home matches and an important thing to note is that stadium renovations in Nigeria take months to be completed and it backfires on the teams.<\/p>\n A prime example would be Sunshine Stars in the 2024\/25 NPFL season, they had to shuffle between Stadiums while the Akure Township Stadium was being renovated, by the time the season was over they got relegated and could only play there in the 2025\/26 NNL season.<\/p>\n When a Nigerian team shifts home ground, it sometimes becomes difficult to pull crowd like they would on match days as some fans might deem the new location too far to travel, some set of fans might not even feel comfortable in an atmosphere that isn\u2019t actually theirs.<\/p>\n Abia Warriors playing in the same state might reduce the travel burden on the home fans but the bigger issue is what this means for the facility in question, if those in charge of Nigerian football don\u2019t focus on the development of the stadiums in the country, Enyimba and other NPFL clubs would eventually suffer the agony of losing a significant part of their supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good day to all lovers of the People\u2019s Elephants home and abroad, especially those of you who can\u2019t wait for the season to start, rest assured August 28 is almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"breadcrumbs_single_post":"","page_title_panel":"","breadcrumbs_single_page":"","single_page_alignment":"","single_page_margin":"","page_structure_type":"","content_style_source":"","content_style":"","blog_post_streched_ed":"","blog_page_streched_ed":"","has_transparent_header":"","disable_transparent_header":"","vertical_spacing_source":"","content_area_spacing":"","single_post_content_background":"","single_page_content_background":"","single_post_boxed_content_spacing":"","single_page_boxed_content_spacing":"","single_post_content_boxed_radius":"","single_page_content_boxed_radius":"","disable_featured_image":"","disable_post_tags":"","disable_author_box":"","disable_posts_navigation":"","disable_comments":"","disable_related_posts":"","disable_header":"","disable_footer":"","footnotes":"","_rishi_post_view_count":43},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-general","rishi-post"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nOver the years, Nigerian clubs have utilized neighbouring stadiums for their home matches and it looks like it\u2019s not going to change anytime soon.<\/p>\n
\nThe Mobolaji Johnson Arena (Onikan Stadium) is another Stadium that will be panel beaten by multiple games next season, about five teams in the NPFL and NNL is set to use the Arena as their home stadium.<\/p>\n
\nThe Enyimba International Stadium hosted the entire Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) Nationwide tournament before the start of the new season.\u00a0The tournament offered promotion to two teams into the NWFL Championship and also gave football fans in Aba exciting matches during the pre-season.<\/p>\n