By Michael Obasi
Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Ibrahim Gusau has never been a man of plenty words, even from his time as board member of the Federation. He has always loved his work to speak for him.
His leadership style is exemplary and very unique compared to what we see from other administrators these days.
The way he has handled some of the country's football issues since his election last year is simply the reason why there is relative peace and enabling environment for the game to thrive. Compared to previous administrations, this is a major breakthrough.
Amongst many others, one issue that would have naturally heat up the football ecosystem is the drama surrounding the Nigerian League.
When Gusau came into office, there were issues on the stability and legitimacy of the leadership of the league coupled with the knotty issue of finding credible sponsorship for the league.
But he ensured all those issues were maturely resolved and handled without unnecessarily publicity. Today, the Nigeria Premier Football League(NPFL) can boast of a stable board and now a record breaking broadcast deal with Startimes.
As easy as it may sound right now , the backend serious battle to arrive at this new deal could only be achieved by a quality leader.
In the past, we saw how issues of broadcast rights and sponsorship tore the Football House apart.
Even this time around when there were boiling issues between the club owners and the leadership of the league on the broadcast deal, all parties finally resolved the matter to arrive at the Startimes Deal without unnecessary bickerings.
Gusau has repeatedly said his objective is to make Nigerian football move forward from all the leagues to the various national teams.
The new Startimes broadcast deal is a huge one and a step in the right direction and a big signal to other sponsors that the Nigerian Football brand is still very viable with huge potentials.
With the New Startimes contract, Nigerians can now watch their talented domestic football stars week in week out on televisions with multiple matches to be shown every weekend.
Gusau understands the importance of getting it right from the League because once that is in place, it will trickle down to the quality of Nigerian players in the national teams.
What the NFF boss represents is similar to that of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu with less media attention to self has achieved, and this has always been their style prior to their current emergence.
President Tinubu did not concentrate on media appearances like other candidates months leading to the last presidential elections but focused on behind the scene strategic plannings to win his election and he did.
Similarly, Gusau never believed in media showboating even when all other candidates were always seen in the media but convincingly blew everybody away during the election in Benin to succeed Amaju Pinnick as NFF President.
And today Nigeria Football league is gradually heading towards the right direction under his leadership.
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