GTI Group is seeking investment from both local and foreign investors into The Nigeria Football Fund (TNFF) to drive development in the nation’s sports ecosystem.
   The TNFF is a platform that provides a unique vehicle to mobilise private sector funding for sports development while enabling the sector to contribute its quota to national economic development.
   The Project Director, TNFF, Nelson Ine, at a media parley with sports and business editors in Lagos, said the ultimate deliverables of TNFF would help convert donations to investments, ensure the safety of investments, guarantee returns on investments, facilitate liquidity in the sports ecosystem and institute transparency and accountability.
   He also stated that the initiative would enhance professionalism and efficiency, create jobs and economic empowerment, and contribute to growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to foster national unity and a stronger economy.
   Describing the fund, he said it is a specialised collective investment scheme or mutual fund that combines the regular advantages of a mutual fund with unique propositions of a structured fund.
   He also stated that the fund is a national project that requires the support of all key stakeholders in the sports ecosystem.
   He also pointed out that the fund eliminates the trust deficit and builds a renewed confidence that will facilitate accelerated growth and development of the nation’s football sector.
   “We must manage our resources to achieve sports development. This fund will be the highest yielding fund in the capital market in the next five years. It will create a platform for investments from both local and foreign investors into the football industry,” he said.
   “Therefore, it is our desire to secure the necessary funding required for the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) management in the quest to implement a football economy that will make Nigeria the hub of Africa sports, custodian of continental glory uniting the people and delivering a stronger economy,” he said.
   Also speaking, the Group Managing Director, GTI Group, Abubakar Lawal said Nigeria still remains the best destination for investment on the continent, saying that the scheme is a national project beyond the fund, but an enabler for sports development in the country.
   “We have to work together to make this national project work. We are currently engaging with FIFA for endorsement. We are also selling the project to other nations and this would put Nigeria on the global map to say it is possible to achieve some significant level of development in the nation’s sport sector. We have demonstrated our capacity and we are full of confidence to do more.
   He said TNFF will serve as an enabler for sustainable funding of football and other sports, with a target of growing sports’ contribution to national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 0.5 per cent within the next five years.
