GTI Asset Management and Trust Limited, has opened a new vista of crowdfunding window designed to finance the Nigerian professional football industry and to run it as competitive as it is done in other parts of the world.
Speaking on this development in Lagos recently, the Group Managing Director of GTI, Mr Abubakar Lawal, explained that the partnership with the Nigeria Football Federation on the implementation of the Nigeria Football Fund, (TNFF) is strategic.
Lawal, described the investment opportunity as the Jewel of the Nigerian capital market.
According to him, The Nigeria Football Fund which is designed for sports and football development offers ample opportunity for Nigerians to invest in the nation’s professional football league considered as a national asset of immense financial value which should not be left in the hands of the government.
Lawal said, “The Football is a national asset which must be run by professional investors with clear cut mandate of goals and objectives. Elite professional sport is not project that should be run as a parastatal of the federal or State Governments where operators of the business would be waiting for the government to release subventions to fund its operations.
Working in partnership local and international investors, GTI assured that in no distant time foreign investors will swoop on Nigeria league to buy off the rights for TV coverage and other support services in the sports and football value chain.
Giving further insight into what the nation stands to gain form the TNFF, GTI’s Executive Director, Fund Management, Mr Nelson Ine, urged Nigerian investing public to urgently take positions to buy shares in the Fund before other diescerning investors from outside the country would occupy take vantage positions.
Citing instances of the English Premiership and the Indian football leagues that have reaped massively from private sector investments in football, he hinted that the love and passion that Nigerian citizens have for the round lathergame, the transformation that happened in the telecommunications industry would soon take place in the nation’s football industry once some anxilary services like television coverage, broadcast rights, sports personality talent management, insurance and related matters are sorted out, the transformation that happened in the telecommunications sector would likely happen in the sports industry.
Ine assured that in the next few years when the TNFF would be quoted on the Nigerian stock Exchange, the Fund would be the highest yielding Fund on the Nigeria Exchange Limited.
Investment in the TNFF is N100 per share and in multiples of 100,000 units.