The Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) Board has postponed the kick-off of the 2023/2024 NPFL league season by two weeks, www.aclsports.com understands.
The new league season was initially proposed by the NPFL board to kick-off on August 26, a date ratified by the Club Owners Association on August 4 after a consultative meeting between the board and the Association.
In a new development however, the NPFL board has now communicated to the Club Owners Association that due to prevailing considerations, the league kick-off will now be postponed to the weekend of September 9, 2023.
The considerations, ACLSports gathered were to allow all teams featuring in continental football the opportunity to kickstart the season same weekend as the remaining teams in the league.
Reigning champions Enyimba FC, Federation Cup winners Bendel Insurance and South West giants Remo Stars will be in action in CAF’s Inter Club competitions on the weekend of August 26 with Enyimba facing Libya’s Al Ahly Benghazi, Insurance facing ASO Chlef of Algeria while Remo face Ghanaian side Medeama SC.
Another reason cited by ACLSports sources is to ensure all modalities as regards the streaming of matches through the NPFLLive platform, powered by Propel Sports Africa are properly put in place.
Propel Sports Africa has hit the ground running in their quest to stream an unprecedented number of NPFL matches to Nigerians home and abroad with the Al Technology operated facilities already put in place in many venues.
League venues such as the Muhammadu Dikko Stadium, Katsina, Kwara State Sports Complex, Ilorin, New Jos Township Stadium, Zaria Road, Pantami Stadium, Gombe, Sani Abacha Stadium, Kano, Lekan Salami Stadium, Ibadan have already had the Al Cameras installed.
In the meantime, the draws for the new season will go ahead as scheduled on Thursday, August 17, 2023 in Lagos by the NPFL board. The participating clubs will be represented at the draws by the three Clubs Owners representatives on the league board.
