WHY TNFF IS CRUCIAL TO SPORTS DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
GTI Asset Management & Trust Limited has highlighted plans to raise funds to provide sustainable solutions to the challenges hindering the growth and advancement of football in Nigeria by focusing on sports development through The Nigeria Football Fund (TNFF).
This is contained in a press release that was made available to journalists on Monday, July 10 and entitled “SPECIAL FEATURE: The Nigeria Football Fund’s Unique Benefits.”
The Nigeria Football Fund (TNFF), an open-ended unit trust and mutual fund registered with the Security and Exchange Commission, plans to generate N5 billion in its maiden public offering by selling 5,000,000,000 units at N1.00 per Unit.
The goal of GTI, an investment firm that has been supporting the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) financially in recent years, is to transform the football clubs from socio-political tools into profitable enterprises and, consequently, a national asset that contributes to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The rest of the statement reads:
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.”
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.