The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has put an end to the 2019/2020 football season due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
All football activities including the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) had long been put on hold since March in order to comply with government laid-down protocols to stem the spread of the virus in the West African country.
The Federation in a release said the decision to end the season was taken after due consultations with relevant authorities and stakeholders and “a holistic consideration of all the issues affecting the leagues (including the status of the leagues before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic), the impact of the pandemic-induced disruptions, the health, safety and movement restrictive measures in the country, the potential protocols for football resumption, the costs, the financial status of the leagues and clubs, CAF calendar and resolutions of the various leagues as conveyed to the NFF”.
Therefore, the 2019/2020 NPFL season was drawn to a close with the top three clubs on the NPFL final Points Per game table as at Match Day 25 will be submitted to CAF as the flag bearers for the 2020/2021 Inter-Club competitions (two slots for CAF Champions League and one slot for CAF Confederation Cup) while the additional slot for the CAF Confederation Cup will be taken by the 2019 Federation Cup winners.
The Federation further announced there will be no promotion or relegation from the NPFL for the 2019/2020 season as well as the second-tier Nigeria National League (NNL) while the yet to be commenced season 2019/2020 of the Nigeria Women Football League(NWFL) has been set aside.
However, the NFF has fixed September/October 2020 as tentative kick off date for the NPFL 2020/2021 season subject to the full reopening of the country by the government and the approval of the health authorities.
Source: Cafonline