How the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the world of sports in Nigeria

From football to boxing and athletes, to what extent has sports been been hit by the coronavirus pandemic?

The coronavirus pandemic came with a devastating effect on normalcy across several sectors. From religion to entertainment and sports, the gathering of people which is the key element that defines the experiences in these sectors in the form of concerts, places of worship and sporting events has been missing due to the lockdown and social distancing mores that came with the pandemic.

All these led to the crippling of economies all over the world including the Nigerian economy which has suffered the added effect of the drop in crude oil prices.

Sports have been particularly hit and the future looks bleak for the local scene.

One of the first sporting events to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic was the National Sports Festival which was billed to hold from Sunday, March 22 to Wednesday, April 1 in Edo State.

Nigeria’s senior national football team, the Super Eagles, saw their 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers against Sierra Leone postponed before the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) ordered for the shutdown of all football activities across the country including the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) and the Nigeria National League (NNL), Nigeria’s top tier and second-tier football leagues respectively.

Super Eagles of Nigeria could not play their AFCON 2021 qualifiers against Sierra Leone in March (Twitter/Super Eagles)

Nigeria’s biggest boxing event, the GOTV Boxing Night also got hit and was postponed indefinitely.

There have been heavy financial implications to all of these cancellations but while sports have been predicted to lose $17.2bn worldwide in 2020 in sponsorship rights fees alone (projections by WPP sports marketing agency Two Circles), it is almost impossible to draw up any number for Nigeria where local sports have had problems with generating revenue due to several reasons.

Football entities in Nigeria have struggled to generate revenue and even the Super Eagles which remains the biggest sports brand in Nigeria has not fared much better.

There was no projected revenue for the Super Eagles game against Sierra Leone which was supposed to be played in Asaba.

For Super Eagles home games, the hosting state usually opens up the gates to fans for free with no gate revenue and that was expected with the Super Eagles game against Sierra Leone in Asaba. With the Broadcast rights of the game sold by the Confederations of African Football (CAF), the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) are left with nothing other than a commitment from sponsors which are difficult to put in numbers. In football terms, only the Super Eagles players would have earned from that game in match bonuses and allowances.

It is the same for the NPFL and the NNL where most of the clubs are owned by state governments. According to Biola Kazeem, a sports media and marketing professional, only the players and some active personnel have something to lose from the suspension of the league.

“Apart from players being inactive and probably not getting paid, the NPFL absolutely loses nothing,” Kazeem told Pulse.

State-owned clubs in the NPFL and NNL are not expected to lose anything from the suspension of the league (Twitter/Enyimba)

“They have no major TV contracts, gate taking are insignificant at most clubs and their commercial operations are almost non-existent.

“In concrete terms, there is no loss of revenue or income to the clubs or league itself.

“The players, referees, match commissioners and delegates are the ones who will be hit in the pocket.

“I am quite sure many state governors are happy the league is on break too and most clubs are a drain on the finances of many states because they literally create no value or generate any income.”

It is the other way for the amateur scene where proprietors and people who run academies have been adversely affected.

“The truth of the matter is unless you are totally immune and you are running online services, pharmacy, chances are your business is going to be affected,” Amaka Beverly Agbakoba-Onyejianya, proprietor of Little Tigers Youth Academy told Pulse.

Parents whose businesses have been hit can nolonger afford to pay for their children's recreational activities.

“As businesses get affected, it affects us because when there is zero income flow, parents won’t pay for their kids’ recreational activities.”

In other sports, the postponement of the National Sports Festival is a huge blow for budding Nigerian athletes who would have earned from state allowances and others who would have benefited from the economic activities around the festival.

Flykite CEO, Jenkins Alumona who organises GOTV Boxing Night saw his Sunday, April 12 and 21st said everyone in the ecosystem has been hit financially.

“Everyone in the ecosystem suffers. From the boxers who only earn money from this sort of event to photographers who would have covered the event to the cleaners,” Jenkins said.

“We would have held two events which means these people would have made a lot of money for themselves.”

Jenkins is already looking to the future and is considering holding his event without fans.

“You know in everything about easing of lockdown, sports is the last thing the government is considering but we have to be ready,” he continued.

“Holding the event without fans in boxing is not the same as football because in football you have 10 other teammates and other teammates on the bench supporting you, in boxing you are alone.

“But it’s something we are exploring.”

For football, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic woeS it gave rise to have left the NFF reeling.

“This has been a decidedly spiritual year; spiritual in the sense that no one anticipated what we have seen so far in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic,” NFF boss Amaju Pinnick said during a recent media call.

The NFF have revealed that they have cut bonuses and allowances for age-group teams (Getty Images)

“It has caused so much disruption and is still causing. But we just have to live with it.”

NFF’s major sponsors have suffered a hit and Pinnick said conversations are ongoing about meeting at "middle-ground situations that would be conducive for ourselves and for themselves."

“Our discussions are ongoing and we must continue to do everything to keep them in-house even as they also struggle to stay afloat,” the NFF boss said.

To cushion the effect of the pandemic, the NFF have decided to prioritise the Super Eagles and the Super Falcons and stop payment of match bonuses and camp allowances to age-grade teams. Players from these teams would, however, get 100% of appearance fees from FIFA or Confederations of African Football (CAF) tournaments.