The newly elected board of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) led by Ibrahim Musa Gusau has been hit by the sudden decision of three of their major sponsors to end their association with the football body.
According to a report in the Guardian, the decision by these corporate bodies to dump the NFF is due to the low mileage they have endured during the course of the deal hence their decision not to renew.
The NFF has a lot of sponsorship partnerships with corporate brands, such as Nigerian Breweries, Air Peace, Cadbury, MTN, Emzor Pharmaceuticals, Aiteo, Coca-Cola, Revolution Plus and Premier Lotto, which runs into billions of naira.
Already, their three major partners Air Peace, Coca-Cola and Revolution Plus have severed ties with the federation. “We are not a charity organisation, which doles out money without getting anything in return. We entered into the partnership with NFF because we thought a big brand like Nigerian football would present great marketing opportunities for us. But that is not the case”, an unnamed source was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
“We kept quiet because we thought the Qatar 2022 World Cup would give us the chance to make up for whatever we lost marketing our brand during the qualifiers. But we didn’t even qualify for the World Cup.
“During the qualifiers, we went through hell to even place our pitch panels at the National Stadium, which was part of the privileges we were to get from the agreement.
“To even get five tickets for our top executives to watch the games was difficult; and since we failed to make the World Cup, nobody has deemed it fit to write to us, explain things to us and/or open a communications channel.”
Speaking to the same medium, the image maker of the NFF Ademola Olajire confirmed the exit of the three big brands. “I am aware that Coca-Cola, Air Peace and Revolution Plus are out. Their contracts ran out and they didn’t take the option of renewal.”
