Examining the NFF’s 5.9 billion Naira budget for 2016 Examining the NFF’s 5.9 billion Naira budget for 2016

Anyone who wants to spend $30 million on football must have more than $30 million otherwise it should not be called a budget. Budgeting is making sure you are spending less than you are bringing in and planning for the short and long term.

The Nigeria Football Federation just released a budget proposal of N5.9 billion, which is about $30 million.

I am happy that we have a budget, but unhappy because we do not have revenue numbers. We have revenue sources but no figures as to what they will contribute to us spending this amount.

The named revenue sources are the federal government, Fifa/Caf, GLO and Guinness.

My University of Texas spends (budget) $25 million a season on its American football programme, but has a revenue base of $103 million, making it the most profitable football program in America.

The University of Alabama has the highest American football budget of any school ($36 million), but has a smaller revenue base than Texas - $83 million.

Hope you get my gist, budgets must correspond to revenues. The NFF is willing to spend $7.5 million on the 2016 African Nations Championship (CHAN).

If the Eagles win CHAN, the NFF will receive $1.5 million from CAF. Am I making sense yet?

The NFF might be double dipping here; the Olympic team is to spend nearly $2 million on preparations for Rio 2016. Olympic teams are under the Nigeria Olympic Committee (Olympic body) and they will be catered for by the federal government. The NFF should correct that expenditure or correct me.

$3.2 million on participation in a private for-profit football beach tournament, COPA Lagos 2016? What am I missing here?

Is beach soccer that important to us as a country, that our NFF will spend five times the money for youth development on sand football?

Remember they are budgeting only $600,000 for youth football development!

A quick glance at the English FA and its last posted financial report saw a revenue base of over 322 million pounds and it spent slightly over 300 million pounds. It also spent about 115 million pounds on grassroots development.

In this same report, the FA lost some government financial support because the FA had not grown grassroots participation numbers in the years in question.

There is a trend in naming budgets; Austerity Budget, Action Budget, Consolidation Budget and even a Stocktaking Budget.

source: goal.com/en-ng