Expensive away games: Poverty, profit, performance hobble demand for local league

With return tickets for players and officials to venues of 15 away matches costing over N2 billion in a season, the prohibitive cost of air travel has forced football clubs in the country to stick to gruelling and hazardous road trips, which compromises not only players’ health but also their performance on the pitch, and attendant quality of the game. Unfortunately, huge government financing has watered down agitation for an abridged cum regional league format, just as team managers are also making a fortune keeping their players on the road for days – at the expense of football development, CHRISTIAN OKPARA reports.

When the Sunshine Stars Football Club of Akure set sail to honour a Nigerian Premier Football League (NPFL) encounter with the Bendel Insurance Football Club in Benin City, Edo State, there was no premonition that they would return without a key crewmember. But that happened after an armed robbery incident along the Benin-Ore Road cost the team its assistant kit manager, Taiwo Dosunmu.

That ugly event in the early part of the ongoing season compelled the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) to appeal to clubs to consider making long trips to away games by air, to avoid the sort of incident that cost Sunshine Stars one of their staff members.

Shortly after the tragic incident involving Sunshine Stars, a Doma United of Gombe bus conveying players and officials was also involved in an accident along the Makurdi-Lafia Road.

The team was returning to Gombe after an NPFL clash against Heartland Football Club, at the Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri.

Although no life was lost, the accident left many players with injuries, prompting the NPFL to postpone their Week 36 games.
Apart from accidents and armed robbers, kidnappers