The quest to lift the Glo Nigeria Premier League (GNPL) title and its N10million prize money this season is undoubtedly a herculean task for the contenders as the first three teams in the race are on the road for the Week 38 fixtures.
The possible title hopeful teams after Week 37 fixtures are Kano Pillars, Bayelsa United of Yenagoa and El Kanemi Warriors of Maiduguri who will be guest to their opponents that also have something at stake in today’s games. However, some of the host teams are battling relegation.
Most interesting in the 2012/2013 season is the N50 million announced by the League Management Company (LMC) Chairman, Nduka Irabor, for the 20 teams that participated while the season lasted, where the league winner will pocket N10 million.
A breakdown of the figures shows that the runners-up will earn N7.5 million while the second and third runners-up will be richer by N5 million and N2.5 million respectively. The fifth, sixth and seventh placed teams will receive N2.1 million, N1.95 million and N1.9 million. Further down are the eight, nineth and tenth placed teams that will be paid N1.85 million, N1.8 million and N1.75 million respectively.
For the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth positions, the reward has been pegged at N1.7 million, N1.65 million and N1.6 million. Others are fourteenth (N1.5 million), fifteenth (N1.4 million), sixteenth (N1.3 million), seventeenth (N1.25 million), eighteenth (N1.2 million) and nineteenth (N1.05 million).
Irabor said that the LMC would regularly review the Merit Award prizes as part of its strategy to ignite healthy competition amongst the clubs and extract greater commitment and enhanced quality of performance from the players.
“The LMC will review the Merit Award prizes as we stabilize the League and grow the revenue base of the company to inspire the players towards higher quality performance and also engender healthy competition amongst the clubs.”
Against this backdrop, football technocrats view the development as an interesting one, noting that it would be a photo finish.
Former Super Eagles’ chief coach, Christian Chukwu, who spoke at the weekend, asserted, “The position of the league now is very interesting, because the result is too close to call, and nobody can predict the team that will win.
“All the potential teams unfortunately are playing away from home; Pillars are going to meet relegation threatened Lobi Stars, Bayelsa to meet Gombe United who are likely to pick a WAFU ticket, and El Kanemi meets Rangers that are also hoping to pick a ticket.
“So, which team would want to concede points to its opponents? Is it those at home that want to avoid relegation or pick tickets?”
Invariably, some football followers have opined that the NPFL 2013 season has witnessed a lot of upsets both at home and away, saying, “All home teams must watch out that the game can go either side, no home advantage and the visiting teams too, particularly the title contenders, should avoid complacency.”
In all of these, only the technical crew that is able to fashion out a good strategy that the players are able to interpret will end the season victorious today.
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