Handball is one of the lesser-known sports in Nigeria, but that doesn’t mean it’s not making strides. Cosmos Chukwuemeka, the media assistant to the President of the Handball Federation of Nigeria, Samuel Ocheho, spoke to Ademola Kadiri in a revealing interview about several issues.

The excerpts are below:

Could you please introduce yourself?

My name is Cosmos Chukwuemeka and I am the media assistant to the president of the Nigerian Handball Federation. I am also a broadcast journalist with LASU Radio where I head the Sports Unit.

We normally don’t hear a lot about the Handball Federation. What could be responsible for this?

Basically, that has to do with the sporting culture of the country. Football is the king of all sports. Everybody loves football. That has to do with the systemic disparity that keeps football ahead of other sports.

The disparity is like the sun and moon; that’s how far they are from each other. It also has to do with structure, talents and inadequacy of facilities; funding is also a big elephant in the room. Football gets 80% of the chunk while the other federations share the remaining 20%.

It’s not only about publicity. Funding also fuels publicity. All of these are the big issues. Policy defects have affected sports, in general. It is not because other sports are not trying, it is because of the defective policy and the challenges that come with it. It is basically systemic.

How does the Federation source for funds?

When the present president came on board, the sport was almost in comatose. They were not attending competitions and grassroots competitions were not being organized. In the 80s, Nigeria used to be the king of handball, but in the 90s, everything fell like a pack of cards because of a whole lot of issues, mainly maladministration.

But then, Samuel Ocheho came in. He’s someone that played the sport, and as a corporate person, he understood how to drive the sport. The first thing he did was to secure the sponsorship for the league, and that was how Prudent Energy came on board. Prudent Energy and Services Limited is an energy company that sponsors the league for about 4 years now. The first phase of the league will come up in May while the second phase comes up in October.

He also ensured that there is level playing ground for individuals that want to put in their money to develop handball. Since 2018, since he became president, there have been many national and international competitions. Apart from the fact that he puts in his own money, which shows his passion, he and the Board have been able to bring a lot of attraction to the sport, so much that handball can now compete with basketball for relevance.

Do the sponsors get value for money to expand the scope of their sponsorship?

Prudent Energy has expanded the scope of its sponsorship twice in 4 years. They are getting the dividends of their investment in the league. When they started in 2018, they got bigger and bigger. Like most energy companies, people might not know about them. They came in and a lot of people started knowing about them and started understanding what they really do.

They came into the league, and it was a big gain for handball to be able to get Prudent Energy, and the dividends for them has been massive. They have leveraged it and everyone now knows that the National Premier Handball League is sponsored by them.

At the point of the lockdown last season caused by Covid-19, they gave out palliatives to all the teams in the league, the players, and even the referees. If they were not getting Return on Investment, they wouldn’t do that at all.

What will you recommend for improving the perception of handball in Nigeria?

It’s a world of technology, and we are trying our best in that regard. We are on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We churn out content every other time, giving updates about the league, and other competitions we participate in. We stream matches live, so we are trying our best to improve the perception and publicity. We also have some media partners that have been with us from day 1.

They help in propagating the good work that the Handball Federation of Nigeria is doing for the growth and development of the sport in the country. Interviews like this also help, but ultimately, what we seek is for handball to go back to the grassroots, which is the fastest possible way to grow the sport.

English top-flight club, Manchester City Football Club has announced its annual report for 2019/20 which covers an unusual season that was paused between March and June due to the ongoing global pandemic and then completed in the 2020/21 fiscal year.

The Premier League current leaders posted a total revenue of £478.4m, a loss of 11% compared to £565.2m made at the same period in the previous year. Revenue delays were the major cause of the reduction in revenue. A quarter of the Premier League matches and the latter stages of the UCL and FA cup including the revenues generated from player sales were delayed by the global pandemic and do not appear in the 2019/20 account. Player sales include Leroy Sane’s transfer to Bayern Munich for around €45m.

READ: Football: Lyon lost €36.5 million in the 2019/20 financial year

CEO Ferran Soriano said: “Clearly, the 2019-20 accounts in isolation are not the best representation of the reality of the season with delayed player trading and numerous games being played after 30th June 2020, the revenues from which will be accounted in the 2020-21 period. A better financial picture of the COVID years will be provided at the end of the 2020-21 season, when the two seasons are combined and normalised.”

The club’s operating expenses was £641.2m, an £80.9m increase compared to £560.3m spent in the previous year because the club continued to meet its full financial commitments, in addition to providing support to staff and the local community, including the significant support for fans, local schools and services and as a provider of valuable infrastructure for the NHS as it battled the pandemic.

Broadcasting revenues were reduced following rebates due to delays to the 2019/20 domestic football season and changes to broadcasting schedules. Broadcasting revenues for the year ended 30 June, 2020 have been reduced to reflect Premier League and UEFA rebates due to broadcasters.

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What you need to know

The pandemic led to a net loss of £126.0m for the 2019/20 fiscal year. The club said the following in a statement:

“However, the club expects to immediately return to profitability in 2020-21, as a result of a less COVID impacted season and deferred 2019-20 revenues. The likely normalised losses for each of the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons will therefore be less than £60m per year.”

Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said: “[we have] a business that is fundamentally strong, with committed shareholders and with significant assets, built carefully over a decade and upon more than a century of history.”

Highlighting “income streams [that] have been deliberately shifted and diversified,” the Chairman continues, “our long-term approach has meant that we are now not wholly dependent on income streams that have been most vulnerable to the ongoing impact of COVID-19.”