The Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) has refuted claims that results are engineered in the competition to ensure an equal number of southern and northern teams are relegated each season, stating that teams get relegated solely when they lack the material and human resources to campaign in the NPFL.
In a statement on Thursday, the NPFL Communication Director, Harry Iwuala, said the league body does not draw regional lines of north and south but treats clubs as registered entities. The statement was responding to reports identifying a pattern that of the 24 teams relegated in the last six seasons, 12 have come from the north and an equal number from the south, with the reports claiming that the statistical balance is increasingly difficult to dismiss as accidental.
The NPFL spokesperson said that in the five relegation data that were used to make the case, Heartland was relegated and returned the next season, only to be relegated again, which shows that the team that was relegated in the previous season was not good enough to play in the NPFL, though it used legal gaps to return. He added that the legal gap has made the league introduce an administrative mechanism to close the legal loophole.
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Iwuala concluded that it will serve football in Nigeria better when the focus is on the game rather than on unproven undertones based on regional divides. The 2025 to 2026 NPFL season wrapped up a few days ago with Enugu Rangers winning their ninth title. The four teams that were relegated this season include Remo Stars, the immediate past champions, as well as Elkanemi Warriors, Bayelsa United FC of Yenagoa, and Wikki Tourists.
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