July is a wrap! August is here.
Football fans the world over, know the feeling in the month of August and the excitement it provokes. A month that heralds the commencement of a new football league season. While some clubs are buzzing with new or possible signings and the fans excited about new possibilities too. Some others despair over the lack of transfer news or action.
In Nigeria, the Nigeria Professional Football League joined the fray in domesticating the buzz and excitement with the timely release of fixture scheduling for the 2025/26 NPFL season. A statement of intent to sustain the effort in fully aligning with the Continental calendar and that of major European leagues. This is the third time in a row that the league schedule is poised to follow the August-May cycle in the last 10 years, that had seen the league end abruptly and inconclusively twice, in 2018 and 2020. And an abridged league format executed to beat deadlines twice, in 2019 and 2023.
It’s commendable to align with the rest of the world, and bring some sanity to the player transfer window, which hitherto saw domestic league players run off to foreign lands for trials in a bid for greener pastures, in the course of the season. However I think we should also align with the media and commercial models that make other leagues exciting and economically viable. Football is big business, and should be managed properly to optimize financial gains.
The playing personnel is the key asset and protagonist in the business of football. Hence should be projected, publicized and marketed to great commercial effect. To achieve that, there is need to create a media buzz around them and not hide them like some endangered species.
The climes we strive to align with, make the players the focus of attention, and in turn, leverage on it to ramp up commercial success. The fans are tuned on to transfer news platforms and consume news feeds, which inflame their passion. When deals are agreed and the dotted lines signed, clubs deploy unique and innovative ways to announce the new signings via short clips of the unveiling and promptly assign a shirt number. The shirt number add to the vibe, as it triggers extraordinary surge in shirt sales.
The buzz occasioned by the publicity on the new signing inspire the fans to purchase club shirts and renew season ticket subscriptions. There is also the heartwarming gesture of shirt reallocation. When a player who had distinguished himself in preceding seasons get the right to choose a preferred shirt number. As seen with Cole Palmer, Lamine Yamal, Kylian Mbappe switching to the iconic no 10 shirt at Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively.
Let me bring it home. If a player like Ifeanyi Ihemekwele switched from the obscure no 31 shirt he wore last term in his debut season to the no 9 shirt, or exciting prospect – Clinton Jephta ditched the no 33 for the no 11 vacated by Bernard Ovoke. That would further emphasize the pivotal role they are expected to play in the team’s attacking setup in the coming season and in turn whet the appetite and raise the expectations of the fans. But it’s still a no show. Nothing is said, seen or heard. No deliberate attempt to engage the fan base and energize them ahead of a new season. Perhaps we will have to wait till the eve of the NPFL opener to see a flurry activity on the mass unveiling of new players. Or need four matchday team sheets to piece together the names and shirt numbers of players in the squad for the season.
As the countdown to the new season is underway, efforts should be made to build excitement in the air to usher in the league season and increase commercial activities towards shoring up the revenue base of the clubs.
This is a clarion call to all involved. Let’s make these 21 days count for something before the big kick off, to signal the start of proceedings in August 22.
EnyimbaEnyi
