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By Abiodun Adewale.
The Interim Management Committee of the Nigeria Professional Football League says it has made adequate arrangements to accommodate the backlog of fixtures of reigning champions, Rivers United, The PUNCH reports.
Rivers United will play more matches in the run-in to the end of the regular season of the 2022/23 abridged season, due to their accumulated outstanding fixtures as a result of their involvement in this year’s CAF Confederation Cup.
The club was eliminated in the quarter-final of the CAF Confederation Cup by Young Africans of Tanzania on 2-0 aggregate and they already have three outstanding matches against Sunshine Stars and Wikki Tourists and Doma United in the league.
As a result of their travelling schedule for the second leg of the Young Africans game, their high-profile Federation Cup round 64 clash against Enyimba which was scheduled to be held last Wednesday was also postponed.
The club returned from Tanzania on Tuesday (yesterday), and there are four outstanding domestic matches awaiting them, with just two weeks to the end of the regular season.
While the abridged NPFL season will end on May 14, the Interim Management Committee has proposed May 20 to 28 for the super-six playoffs in Lagos which will produce the league champions and three continental representatives.
In a statement on Tuesday, Head of Operations of the IMC, Davison Owumi explained that the Group B games which were rescheduled to enable Rivers United to have full focus on the continental ties will further be readjusted.
As a result, the last matches of Group B on match-day 18 would be completed simultaneously on a date to be announced while matches of Group A sides will be played as scheduled in the calendar.
“Our fixtures fidelity has been proven from the kickoff and we are working to accommodate Rivers United outstanding games to ensure the season is concluded with minimal blip”, Owumi noted.
“After the match-day 17, Group B matches would be paused to allow Rivers United complete their backlog and we hope to accomplish this within the month”, the former Nigerian international told IMC Media.
Meanwhile, their postponed high-profile Federation Cup round 64 tie against Enyimba has been rescheduled for Thursday May 4, while the date of a potential round 32 tie against Plateau United will be fixed later. The winner of the Federation Cup will become the country’s fourth representative on the continent next season.
“Since we are done with the CAF competition, we will come back and face all the games. It’s one of the things that has affected but we will try and see how we will manage the players and the fixtures to get the best results out of them,” Rivers United coach, Stanley Eguma told our correspondent.
To avert another occurrence of cumbersome fixtures for the country’s representatives, Port Harcourt based journalist, Fisayo Dairo, believes the practicability of a harmonized football calendar will help.
“If we had started the league in September, we would have gone a long way in the season to accommodate such fixtures. Also, on the part of the NFF, they have to ensure the FA Cup also starts sometimes in October/November so that it does not add to the obnoxious fixture congestion at the latter part of the season,” Dairo told The PUNCH.
