The League Management Company, LMC, has informed the Senate that there is need to make laws that will enhance the welfare of the Nigerian players who are plying their trade in the country.
The chairman of LMC, Hon. Nduka Irabor said the condition of players in the Nigerian leagues is in a sorry state because the club owners have not thought it important to take good care of their players even when they knew that players life span in the game is short.
He noted that unlike civil servants who can work even when they are at their seventies, players hardly continue the game at the age of forty, yet clubs are not paying them adequately to commensurate with their playing years, adding that even the little they agreed to pay them, majority of the players are still being owed.
Shehu Dikko in his part said because of the way players are being treated in Nigeria, that is why they are running to other neighbouring countries to ply their trade. He noted that if the laws governing football are not strengthened in Nigeria, very soon there would be no player to play in the leagues because of the way they are treated by club owners.
He called on the national assembly to save young Nigerians who preserve themselves from being nuisance to the society and chose football as their careers by making the laws that will compel club owners to pay them well so that at their retired age they would have nothing to regret upon.
In the same vein, Austin Popo, the secretary of the Association of Professional Footballers of Nigeria said the need for a member of that body to represent the association and the interest of Nigeria footballers who ply their trade in the country at the Nigeria Football Federation executive board cannot be overemphasized.
He stressed further that if their member is in the executive board of the NFF, it will help in correcting most of the ills against the players which are perpetrated by club owners.