NPFL Issues Website Licence Warning to Clubs
Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) Chief Operating Officer Davidson Owumi has warned all member clubs that they must establish and maintain functional websites or face the loss of their operating licences. The directive was delivered during a seminar in Enugu aimed at media officers, marketing directors, and media directors, organised jointly by the NPFL and Afrinvest.
Owumi highlighted that the lack of credible, verifiable information from the league’s twenty clubs remains a major barrier to securing sponsorship deals. He noted that weak online visibility and absent digital platforms have already cost the league and its clubs millions of naira in potential revenue.
“Inadequate, inconsistent, or completely missing data from clubs without functional websites and proper social media presence is hurting our commercial prospects,” Owumi lamented.
Stricter Licensing Enforcement Ahead
The NPFL will begin enforcing stricter licensing criteria to ensure compliance with its digital standards. Any club — whether newly promoted or already established in the top flight — that fails to create, maintain, or operate a working website will not be issued a licence, and existing licences may be withdrawn.
Investment in Media Departments Urged
Beyond website requirements, Owumi called on club owners and administrators to allocate more resources to their media units. He stressed that effective communication is essential for building strong club brands.
“Club administrators must step up and properly fund their media departments,” he said. “Without sufficient funding and regular training, media teams will underperform.”
He described the media department as the “eye through which the public sees the club.” A club lacking a credible and effective media presence is, in his view, “useless and dead” in the public arena because media is what projects the club into the limelight.
Ideally, a professionally run media department should comprise five or six specialists: a Director of Media, Still Photographer, Graphic Designer, News Editor, Social Media Manager, Content Creator, and Videographer.
Critique of Current Media Practices
Owumi also criticised the prevailing model at many NPFL clubs where a single individual is expected to handle photography, interviews, report writing, social media management, video production, and graphic design.
He labelled this arrangement “unprofessional, unproductive, and counter‑effective” for sports journalism, urging clubs to adopt a more structured and specialised approach.
