The House of Representatives said on Monday that members of the League Management Company should appear before it to explain the exclusion of Nembe City of Bayelsa and Giwa FC of Jos from the Nigeria Professional Football League.
Also summoned is the leadership of the Nigeria Football Association.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Sports, Hon. Godfrey Gaiya, announced this to newsmen after the committee’s budget defence meeting in Abuja.
Gaiya said that it was illegal for the LMC to have done so.
The LMC had on March 4 excluded both teams from participating in the 2013/2014 Nigeria Professional Football League season.
The LMC said both teams were expelled for not meeting the minimum requirements for registration for the new league season.
Gaiya said on Monday: “There are other issues we are looking into, not only that of Nembe City FC.
“I also got a call from the proprietor of Giwa FC, saying the same thing too.
“Giwa’s complaint is that he cannot afford to pay N150,000 as minimum wage for the players and I was wondering whether the LMC has the power to fix a minimum pay for a club.
“We are going to look into that.
“We don’t want to be pre-emptive about it but we want to look at the terms of reference to know if they have the powers they are now applying.
“We will make a pronouncement after this examination.”
The lawmaker expressed regret that the two privately owned clubs in the elite league were discouraged from contributing to the growth of the game in the country.
He said: “If privately owned clubs in the elite league in Nigeria are having challenges like we have seen in Nembe City and Giwa FC, then the future does not look good for private ownership of clubs.
“Owning a club is a capital project.
“It is a business and it is all about demand and supply.
“I don’t think that putting a ceiling on what a club should pay players is good enough.
“You should allow clubs to go after the kind of players they can afford and when the players feel they have a better market value elsewhere, they can go to where their quality can be appreciated.”
Gaiya said that there was no sense in a club spending over N4 million to pay players monthly and then collect N7 million from the LMC as winner of the league.
Gaiya said that it was absurd for a club’s expenditure to be ridiculously more than its revenue since it was centred on business and declaring dividends to the shareholders.
The sports committee chairman said the LMC should have weighed all the options before imposing such conditions on the clubs.
Victor Baribote, the Chairman of Nembe City FC, wrote a protest letter to the committee on the club’s expulsion from the NPFL.
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