Support for the Nigerian Premier League – Senator Ben Murray-Bruce

The call for Nigerians to back the Nigerian Professional Football League has found a new high profile voice in politician and businessman 
Ben Murray-Bruce. 

The outspoken senator has in recent times been whipping up patriotic sentiments in a relentless Twitter onslaught, calling for patronage and support for local businesses as a way to get our stricken economy back on track. 

He has urged support for the likes of local car manufacturer Innoson, Nasco Foods, Arik Airlines and Aba manufacturers among others and this week someone drew my attention to his tweets on our domestic football.
 

Finally, perhaps we are making some progress, albeit necessitated by our harsh economic realities. Some of us suspected we would get here, and that our businesses will be in trouble. We also knew that despite our unabashed sponsorship and support of European football, when the crunch came, we would be left on our own. 

The Arsenals, Chelseas, Manchester Uniteds, Barcelonas and Real Madrids will not come to the aid of the Nigerian economy, they will not be creating the jobs locally that our nation needs to bounce back. 

So, now appears that time when we must do the needful and invest our resources in the domestic game so we can create the jobs and wealth at home not abroad. As the senator has succinctly put it “We spend billions on European soccer and abandon our own local leagues. 

Sports can be a major employer of labor #BuyNaijaToGrowTheNaira”

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, supporting the NPFL is not a favour, but a business imperative. Sports create jobs, jobs lead to disposable income, and disposable income leads to business patronage and profits. 

For years now, while our league laid prostrate, our big business leaders have unwittingly spent billions promoting European football to Nigerians and this has seen them win millions of fans for leagues like the English Premier League, the Spanish La Liga, the Italian Serie A and the German Bundesliga. 

The consequence of this has been Nigerians shipping billions overseas yearly through TV networks and direct travels to watch football games and buy tons of merchandise overseas. Well payback time is time is here. Nigeria is broke, the naira is plunging, business sales are dipping and thousands are being thrown into the job market. 

I doubt the marketing managers who felt really smug about blowing billions on the European game in the last decade are feeling smug about the figures the sales are showing.

They always argue that they back the European game because that is what fans are watching, well they are still locked in that foolish logic in 2016 when the fans have lost their jobs or have had their salaries slashed. 

What is the point of promoting to people who do not have disposable income? 

Money that should have been used to support the local game and create jobs within have all been shipped away to instead create jobs overseas. 

I do not hear the British, Germans, Italians and Germans crying the way we do about fallen oil prices, I do not here them talking about devaluation and looking for loans to survive, and I can only hope we have learned some lessons.

Thanks to the senator for drawing attention to this. I personally do not know him closely and, being a bit circumspect about politicians, I would tread softly, but commonsense like this means people like me will be paying closer attention to him.


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