With weeks to the start of the Nigeria Premier League, the director of Diamond Skylinq Sport Agency, Mr Idris Ibrahim, has specially told allnigeriasoccer.com that his company is working on a project to bring professional South American footballers to the domestic championship.

Idris Ibrahim told allnigeriasoccer.com: ''In Brazil, businessmen invest in players like they invest in shares and other securities. They purchase the economic rights of players from clubs and pay the clubs their value. Clubs use this money to run their activities. When a player moves to a big club in Europe, the businessmen get return on their investment.

''These are some of the players you might be seeing in our league next season. We have agreed terms with 11 professional Brazilian players. The club will only pay a little fee, and the salary will be paid by the Brazilian clubs, investors and Diamond Skylinq Sport Agency.

''The fee will be a commitment from the part of the club to have say 50 percent of the right of the player, and we and the investors keep the remaining. And the fee will be at par with what they incur on local players. The club will not be responsible for the salary, transfer fee and sign-on fees of the players. So there won't be questions of unpaid salaries.''

Idris Ibrahim  is confident the partnership with the South American clubs and investors will generate income and bring spectators back to the stadiums.

''I have been working on a model to transform the league for the past two years and this is the crux of it. We want to see fans back at the stadiums, clubs generating income and not depending on government. If there are no fans, no company will want to sponsor our clubs because there are no fans to market products to and no gate-takings.

''The question is that Nigerians love football and we are fanatics of it, but why are people not watching our league? Nigeria is not like other countries that other sports compete with football,'' he said.
 
Photo Credit: fifa.com