The Nigeria Football Fund (TNFF) is an open-ended Security and Exchange Commission-Registered Unit Trust/Mutual Fund with an initial public offering to raise N5billion through the issuance of 5,000,000,000 units at N1.00 per Unit.
It is a fund launched by GTI Asset Management & Trust Limited on Tuesday, March 22, 2022,to provide sustainable solutions to the challenges hindering the growth and advancement of football in Nigeria by focusing on sports development. Presently, TNFF is the catalyst energizing the transformation of the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL).
In the past, the organization of NPFL had so many challenges bedevilling it and topmost among them is the issue of poor funding which the Fund is going to breathe in a new lease of life into it going forward.
For the records, TNFF also invests in high-quality investment-grade instruments involving equities of quoted companies, money market or fixed-income instruments, and strategic investment in football/sports sector via securitized lending investments in identified short to medium-term “Football Projects.”
The Fund also aims to transform football clubs from socio-political tools to profitable business enterprises and by extension, a national asset; contributing to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
As noted earlier, TNFF will promote investment culture among participants in the sports industry with an opportunity to earn returns from investment-grade instruments involving equities of quoted companies, sovereign and corporate short/long-term debt obligations and securitized lending investments in identified short to medium-term “Football Projects.”
The multiplier effects of building a “Football Economy” is extremely huge, as an improved football sector will drive a cycle of growth (value-chain effects) across several other sectors like Tourism, Broadcasting, Technology, Gaming, Media, Hospitality, Transportation, Merchandising etc. The result of these will lead to increased economic activities, increase in employment opportunities, rise in disposable income, significant contribution to GDP and a general increase in demand for the products, goods and services produced by Nigerian corporate/manufacturing companies.
The Fund which is currently managed by GTI Asset Management & Trust Limited has the following under-listed deliverables:
It will help the government to use football to manage social vices, especially among the teaming idle youths. Most of these youths would be kept busy through sporting activities and will not fancy indulging themselves in criminal activities if left unchecked.
Therefore, an improved football economy enhances national development as the beautiful game in turn becomes an easy tool or a veritable source of revenue for government finances.
Another deliverable is that TNFF will help to enhance national saving culture and will stimulate the financial inclusion agenda of the federal government.
Also, another good benefit of TNFF is that it deepens the creative economy of Nigeria, produces and distributes cultural goods with positive economic impact. The positive spill-over effect on the tourism sector development can be heartwarming because of its positive impact on hotel occupancy rates.
Aside from enhanced foreign exchange earnings, which TNFF will bring to the table through foreign television broadcasting rights, infrastructural development; the fund has demonstrated the capacity to convert the interests of mammoth Nigerian fans into commercial success and sustainable growth.
From the foregoing, the benefits of TNFF are much and for a country like Nigeria that wants to diversify its economy, TNFF is a ready mutual fund that will provide the magic wand to add up to the GDP of Africa’s most populous black nation.
