‘Supersport Won’t Own a Football Club in the Country’

Daily Independent (Lagos)

Peter Edema

27 July 2011

SuperSport Nigeria is not contemplating forming a football club in Nigeria despite having one in South Africa. This is because its policy for now is to support all the clubs playing in the Nigeria Premier League (NPL) and thereby help in the development of Nigeria football.

General manager, SuperSport Nigeria, Felix Awogu, who made this known on Wednesday in Lagos, said that the strategy for now “is to support ll the clubs in Nigeria. We won’t own a club in Nigeria for now but to support the league.”

To underscore its commitment to the development of the league, he said that an OB van has been added to the two in the country for a more coverage of the league, hinting that another OB van is being expected in September.

Awogu revealed that there are too many challenges facing the media outfit in its bid to beam league matches live to the world.

The greatest of such challenges, according to him, is the match fixtures that lumped all matches together at a time.

He said with the matches kicking off at the same time, it has become a problem for the company to beam more than one matches live at the same time. He also added that bad roads across the country have made it more complicated for its crew to reach match venues.

Awogu, however, promised Nigerians that they will have opportunity of tracking the performances of Super Eagles stars in the UEFA Champions League, Super Cup and the Europa League.

This was because SuperSport has won these tournaments broadcast rights until the 2014/15 season.

Vincent Enyeama, Taye Taiwo and Emmanuel Emenike have moved to France, Italian and Turkish teams respectively have significantly upped Nigerian participation in the UEFA Champions League. consequently, SuperSport is upping its Champions League High Definition (HD) with two live matches broadcast in HD per match day compared to one in the past season.

SuperSport will upp its broadcast live matches from 1000 for last season to 1200 this season.

“It’s a challenge that we are happy to take up,” said Awogu, adding, “we now have a dedicated HD channel for only football.”

AllAfrica – All the Time