The Super Eagles’ involvement in the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) has been aimed at encouraging players to stay in the nation rather than pursue clubs abroad.

Among the decisions made at the first-ever NPFL Board and Staff retreat, which was hosted in Abuja by Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President Ibrahim Gusau, was this one.

The NPFL needs to produce heroes in order to draw more spectators to the stadium, it was noted during the interactive session between the board members and staff.

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“It is recommended that the NPFL Board will reach out to the NFF with a recommendation that NPFL players must be included in future call-ups to improve their confidence and quality of play.”

In addition to praising the NPFL Board for their audacious strategy to reposition the league, Gusau, who opened the retreat, noted that the NFF will support any forward-thinking proposal to add value, make the league competitive, and draw sponsors and investors in order to develop domestic football.

“I came here today to lend support to this novel idea of changing the narratives about Nigerian football and will challenge the NPFL Board to extend this to also having a resource session with the Clubs.”

The NFF President explained his decision to extend the retreat to club officers by pointing out that as clubs are the primary venues for displaying the positive and negative aspects of the league, most concerns the NPFL addresses are connected to club operations.

“I am always available to support initiatives that will change the narratives about our league”, Gusau assured the gathering of the hierarchy of the NPFL Board members and staff.

The NPFL Chairman stated during his speech that the retreat’s overall goal was to evaluate the previous season’s performance in order to strengthen the areas that worked well and address any areas that needed improvement.

Elegbeleye provided a list of the season’s accomplishments, mentioning the signing of Direct To Home (DTH) contracts with StarTimes and Over The Top (OTT) arrangements with Propel Sports Africa.

“This retreat is to provide us a cordial forum for the Board and Staff to rub minds without inhibitions and to have first hand knowledge of how the Board can intervene to improve processes to achieve more than we have done so far.”