Exploring the relationship between corruption and sports sponsorship in Nigeria: the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL) and the Nigerian Basketball Premier League (NBBPL) as case studies

Nigeria, the largest gathering of black people on earth, bordering the Gulf of Guinea of the Atlantic Ocean at its southern end, Niger Republic in the North, Chad and Cameroon to the East, and Benin Republic to the West (See map of Nigeria on page 34), fondly called the ‘Giant of Africa’ and its people provides the setting for this unique study. Nigerians regard the country as a sporting nation (Nwakanma, 2008), with the potential for global sports dominance. However, the country and its people acknowledged that myriad of challenges have held back that sporting dominance ambition over the years.

The opening remarks of the 2020 National Sports Industry Policy (Ehinmosan, 2020), captured the situation aptly by identifying decaying infrastructure, lack of incentives, declining investments and policy mismatch as trigger factors preventing the harnessing of Nigeria’s remarkable sporting talents, passion, interest, and excellence. Though this study preceded the NSIP by two years, the challenges within the sports sector in Nigeria remained ever constant, denying the youth employment opportunities through sports, and depriving the government alternative revenue source (Ehinmosan, 2020). Though there are numerous trigger factors, however, this research focus is on unravelling why the football and basketball leagues in Nigeria, which incidentally are the two most populous sports in Nigeria are failing to attract sponsors since at least the last two decades.

The dominant but unproven reason on the lips of the average sport fan on the streets of Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Aba, and Lokoja to mention a few is usually that corruption is killing Nigerian sport. Is this unproven statement true? Is corruption really the problem or merely a convenient fodder, masking much deeper and bigger malaise. That is exactly part of the underlining motivation for this study.

As presented in the introductory chapter below, Nigeria sports have not always struggle to attract sponsors. From the 1970s till the early 1990s, sponsors were not in short supply within Nigerian sports. However, at least since 1999, the reverse had been the case. The Nigerian oil and gas sector – upstream and downstream, the Nigerian financial sector, technology sector, and the telecommunications sector to mention a few are however growing and expanding, which naturally should mean more sponsorship funds for sports. That has not happened.

The corruption narrative has not been helped by the perpetual ranking of Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International’s (TI), corruption perception index. However, corruption is not unique to Nigeria. Other countries with similar ranking on the corruption index continue to attract sponsors to their sport sector.

The researcher empirically explored the relationship between corruption and the sport sponsorship, and in the process unravelled other factors that contributed to the dearth of sponsorship in Nigerian sports. It was found that government interference in the focal leagues through ownership of overwhelming majority of clubs, involvement in the day-to-day activities of the leagues, and the failure to provide incentives to private sports investors are more damaging factors. Research participants did not regard corruption as an insurmountable challenge. This aligns with extant literature that suggested that corruption is a global phenomenon and not native to Nigeria.

Research participants were drawn from an array of stakeholders systematically selected as explained in chapter three of this study. The researcher adopted a qualitative, multiple casestudy approach and data collection was through 116 survey respondents (players, coaches, and fans), and 32 in-depth semi-structured interviews with sponsors, club owners, broadcasters, federation officials, leagues organisers, and government representatives. Rich contextual data were collected from diverse range of Nigerian stakeholders within the two focal leagues. The data collected were thematically analysed revealing the unexpected finding about government interference being the main factor in the opinion of research participants militating against the influx of sponsors to the two leagues. Nigerian government directly or indirectly (through government agencies) owns over 80% of all football and basketball clubs competing in the two leagues. It was found that government in Nigeria is the regulator of sports, the major financier of sports, and the largest owner of clubs competing in the two leagues. Research participants attributed gross inefficiency, nepotism, and abuse of power and privileges to government activities in Nigeria, which has been transferred to the two focal leagues. Hence, the lack of interest from sponsors and private investors.

During the period of the study, the Nigerian government reclassified sports as business, which is expected to contribute between 1.5% - 3% to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) and generate between 5 – 10 million jobs in the next decade. This new policy direction makes the findings and recommendations in this study even more germane.