- vows to make NPFL thrive through TNFF
GTI Asset Management & Trust Ltd, a strategic partner with the Nigeria Premier League, has pledged its commitment to drive the Nigeria Premier Football (NPF) League (NPFL) through its novel The Nigeria Football Fund (TNFF).
The leading financial institution has committed millions into the NPFL since the Gbenga Elegbeleye-led Interim Management Committee(IMC) took over the day-to-day administration of the NPFL as GTI gave a 10m take-off to each of the 20 teams taking part in the on-going abridged 2022/2023 season.
Speaking at a parley with the media at the outfit’s corporate headquarters in Lagos yesterday, Executive Director Fund Management who doubles as the Projector Director of the TNFF, Nelson Ine, said the intervention funding of the NPFL was a well-thought out business module , adding the TNFF will in a record time change the fortunes of Nigerian football forever.
“ Football has become big business and the TNFF is here as an enabler for the NPFL,” Ine said.“The TNFF is a specialised mutual fund and the whole idea is to encourage every Nigeria to invest in this fund and this fund will be used to activate professional sport because professional sport has the capacity to deliver substantial revenue instead of always waiting for the government to fund our sport, especially football.”
Citing the Premier League in England, the vastly financial investment expert, noted that professional sports can survive without government funding, adding there are millions of investors from Nigeria and abroad that would be willing to finance Nigerian football even more so through the TNFF.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we (GTI) are not a sponsor of the league rather we are strategic partners with the Nigeria Premier League with the sole aim to make the NPFL business driven; we are the NPFL enablers,” he said.
Ine further said that the strategic partnership between GTI and NPF has started yielding results in the on-going NPFL season after his outfit took over the payment of indemnities of NPFL match officials as well as funding other ancillary services associated with the country’s top-tier league.
In his own remarks, the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of GTI, Abubakar Lawal, said the outfit has taken it upon itself to make NPFL and indeed Nigerian football a successful business enterprise.
“ We have been on this project for over a decade and we have been working and funding this TNFF project on a daily basis,” said the sexagenarian. “As an investment banking, we have taken it upon ourselves the responsibility to turn around Nigerian football using the TNFF but I want everybody to know that this is a collective responsibility; therefore all Nigerians must be ready to invest in the TNFF.”