By Sedara Oluwadara
Vandrezzer FC, a football club in the Nigeria National League NNL, that is fast becoming the most sophisticated, best coordinated and best motivated private club in the country, did not achieve this feat overnight.
It is a result of constant planning, some well researched organizational policies and the drive to do things in line with international best practices.
Today, the club has emerged as the most followed Nigerian football club on social media. Players and officials of Vandrezzer FC appear in a distinctive and unique style that differentiates them from others and they remain the only football team in the NNL and NPFL that understands that football is not a do or die affair. They play to win but will not do anything to influence the results of matches either on the pitch or off it.
Infact, Vandrezzer football club is the first Nigerian clubside that took up the responsibility to broadcast all their league matches live to their local and international viewing audience. The purpose is to use the platform to expose the players and the brand to the world market.
In the last two seasons or more, the Nation has been held spellbound by the creative brilliance of this once modest football club from Akwa Ibom state that has now risen from obscurity to international limelight. Today, the World sees Vandrezzer FC as the shining light of Nigeria football and the football fans at home and abroad are proud to be associated with a club that is on a mission to change the narratives.
Joe Udofia is the chairman and financier of the club. A youngman whose international connect has seen him transverse the length and breadth of this world to unearth some of the latest technologies in modern day broadcasting.
He is a fan of the the English Premier League, a model he has taken time to carefully study before setting up Vandrezzer football club. Today, he is on the threshold of achieving what no one living or dead has ever achieved in Nigeria football. He has institutionalized Vandrezzer football club in his home state, Akwa Ibom, and has built a massive fan base in Lagos, where the team is currently located.
The beauty of the Vandrezzer story is their state of the Art outside broadcasting network that is capable of transmitting live matches from anywhere in Nigeria. They are tested and trusted. With some of the best technical hands in the industry, they have succeeded in broadcasting over eighty live matches in more than 15 states of the federation.
The Broadcast room is loaded with the very latest high definition cameras that can be seen anywhere in the world. Added to that, is a well sophisticated and highly equipped production room and editing suite for match highlight and other post match interviews.
They are not in this business for competition, rather they have taken time to identify the necessities of life and have positioned men with capacity to deliver in all departments, to achieve the desired results.
For over two seasons or more, the Nigeria Premier League has not been on terrestrial TV. Tried as they did, the League management company only came close to assuaging the taste of football fans with the NEXT TV arrangement, an exercise that failed just when the excitement was rising.
As the Interim Management committee put in place by the Sports ministry and NFF strategies on how to return the glamor back to the NPFL by broadcasting live matches of the league, many are of the idea that there is no need looking too far when there is a Nigerian company with the ability and capacity to deliver.
Stakeholders are therefore calling on the IMC to take a critical look at the Vandrezzer model, take a tour of their facility site and decide purely on merit if they deserve the right to be broadcast partners of the NPFL.
It is only when this is done and they are considered not good enough that we can say, they got their chance but never took it.
