NLO CEO expresses happiness with start of New Year Mega Lottery league

NLO CEO expresses happiness with start of New Year Mega Lottery league

By Vincent Akinbami

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Nationwide League , Shola Ogunowo, has expressed happiness with the start of the New Year Mega Lottery NLO League.

An obviously related Ogunowo said after the opening match "I am very happy, the board of the Nationwide League is happy, the NFF is happy, Nigerians are happy and Kaduna people are happy because of what we have done here.
"It has been a long time coming, we have worked towards this long time and having a good environment like this with partners and sponsors around gives the clubs and the players hope," the COO added.

He continues"If you go to sofascore everything about this match is there, the whole world is watching, just like if you go to Average scout, the analysis of this match is there. The tackles, the technical analysis are there, the players rating are there, you don't need to bring scout to Nigeria again, they can sit at the comfort of their houses. The good thing is that all the company's are Nigeria companies aside from sofascore that is from Croatia. So I am happy we have been able to achieve this. We will not stop here but keep the tempo,we will not stop .It can only get better."

Ogunowo said the league has grown beyond what it was in the 90s. "When I was appointed in 2013, the league had 80 clubs, but today we have more than 500 clubs now. We will not stop here,we are looking at 2000 clubs in the Nationwide League.
"The population of youth is so much, so the NFF gave us the right to expand the league. We have a lot of youth at the grassroots so we need to expand. We will make it a regional thing as time goes on because we have lots of youth in nook and crannies of the country."

The COO said only eight teams will qualify for NNL while eight teams will also go down to NLO2.

"We have 16 centrres 32 groups and 8 teams will graduate to NNL," he said.