The Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) has indefinitely withdrawn the 2024-2025 licences of 143 players who were newly transferred by the affected clubs.
Clubs affected include Abia Warriors (23 players), Kwara United (20), Enyimba (18), Bayelsa United (18) and Akwa United (17).
Others are Lobi Stars (15), Plateau United (14) and El-Kanemi Warriors (13) and Katsina United (5).
The sanction, which is the consequence of disputes over salaries and entitlement of some of the clubs’ former players and coaches, will be effective from Matchday 10. Matchday 9 will be played this weekend.
In a letter to the clubs on Thursday, NPFL Chief Operating Officer, Davidson Owumi said: “As a result of this non-compliance, the licences of the following newly transferred and registered players for the 2024/2025 season are hereby indefinitely withdrawn, effective from Matchday 10”.
NPFL said it had to move to enforce arbitration decisions of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Players Status/Arbitration Committee following the failure of affected clubs to take advantage of extended windows of moratorium.
The clubs were respectively dragged to the NFF committee over the breaches.
The committee entered judgement in favour of the petitioners and gave the affected clubs a time frame and process for compliance.
Owumi further said: “Having exhausted the period of grace, we have moved to enforce the judgement and the first step is to withdraw licenses of all newly transferred and registered players of the affected clubs for the ongoing season”.
The NPFL insisted that the licences of the players would only be restored upon the receipt of official confirmation that the clubs have fully complied with the decision.
