Poverty has been described as the reason why most Nigerian league games do not have a befitting number of spectators at different match venues on match days.
This was disclosed by a former U-17 assistant coach and former MFM FC coach, Nduka Ugbade in an exclusive interview with sports247 where he further said that Nigerians prefer eating with their money to buying tickets to watch a football match because of the high poverty rate in the country.
‘the poverty level in Nigeria is very high that people now believe and has seen as one basic fact that it is better I use my two hundred naira to buy bread and beans than spending it to pay for gate fee to watch some football that at the end of the day will be marred with some violence, sadness and some bad footballing’
The former El-kanemi Warriors player added that the only stadia that had its full capacity filled will be in Kano and Jos where fans come out to watch their NPFL club sides, Kano Pillars and Plateau United.
‘our stadia these days are not full, the only time you see our stadia full is when you go to the North, to places like Kano, you know, places like Kaduna as well, the stadia will be very full apart from that no other place, most probably too, you go to Jos, most probably maybe the seating area will be but apart from that nothing else’.
Ugbade said the live broadcasting of foreign leagues- England, Spain, Germany, France on cable TVs in the country has greatly affected our football and the league must do something to bring crowd to watch local football.
‘the coming of the cable network, most of the big stations and programmes aired like the Premiership and the rest, the German league and the rest, have greatly affected our football. I have traveled far and wide mostly to the 6 great nations where football is being played and what they show on their tv is their own league, this is what I saw in Nigeria briefly and have not seen it again, growing up, we had the opportunity of seeing the Nigerian league twice a week live but not again’
