The Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) has dismissed claims that relegation outcomes in the competition are manipulated to ensure an equal number of northern and southern teams drop out every season.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the NPFL’s Director of Communications, Harry Iwuala, said clubs are relegated strictly based on sporting and administrative shortcomings.
Iwuala explained that teams only go down “when they lack the material and human resources to campaign in the NPFL during the season.”
The league body was reacting to reports that highlighted a recurring pattern in the topflight division. The reports noted that of the 24 clubs relegated over the last six seasons, 12 were from the North and 12 from the South, suggesting the trend was “increasingly difficult to dismiss as accidental.”
Responding to the allegations, Iwuala insisted that the NPFL does not operate along regional lines.
He further pointed out that no northern club had won the NPFL title during the period being referenced, arguing that the claim lacked merit.
He added “Note also that in the five relegation data that he used to make his case, Heartland was relegated and returned the next season only to be relegated again That in itself shows that the team relegated in the previous season wasn’t good enough to play in the NPFL, though it used legal gaps to return. That legal gap has made the league introduce an administrative mechanism to close the loophole.”
“Finally, it will serve football in Nigeria better when we focus on the game than on unproven undertones based on regional divides,” Iwuala added.
