The scenes were wild. Everyone in the stadium was uncontrollable when Olalekan Adedayo’s shot hit the crossbar before marginally crossing the line.
It was not just a goal, it was the realization of a 15-year NPFL dream.
The return on investment for a man who single-handedly financed a change in the way a football club is run in Nigeria, leading to the birth of Remo Stars Sports Club.
The goal that sealed a first NPFL title for Remo Stars last night
🔥 Olamilekan Adedayo
🎥 @RemoStarsSC #NPFL25 #NPFL25FinalStretch pic.twitter.com/4ALv5q7bVm
— NPFL (@NigeriaPFL) April 28, 2025
Remo Stars have bagged their first-ever major trophy in Nigerian football. They knocked three times consecutively and finally crossed the finish line. These are the stories that make football very interesting and, in particular, show how tough winning the NPFL can be for clubs.
As things stand in Nigeria, Remo Stars Football Club is the model in all ramifications, both on and off the pitch. Every club is looking to build a model that the owner of Remo Stars Sports Club, Hon. Kunle Soname, has laid out for his club. But in my opinion, for a club barely just 15 years old, should they actually be the best in the land yet?
Failed Traditional NPFL Teams
Every league in the world has the typical clubs that are expected to challenge for the title year in, year out. These clubs, usually referred to as traditional teams, are the go-to names when you ask fans, “who wins the league at season’s end?”
In the NPFL, we also have traditional teams who should be challenging for the title season in, season out. Enyimba, the team with the historic highest number of titles, Rangers, who clinched it last season, Kano Pillars, who have not won it since they won a three-peat, Heartland, who have not come close since 1990, and Shooting Stars, who seem to have forgotten their history and their 1995 triumph.
Looking at the history of the NPFL, these teams are the clubs dominating the league until the late 90s. The names mentioned above were either winning the league with Peats or alternating who wins it every season. Bar Enyimba and Rangers, who have won it in the 2020s, the champions of the NPFL in that period, are newly formed or founded clubs.
An Era Of Newly Formed Clubs
3 of the 5 recent winners of the league – Akwa United, formed in 1996, Rivers United, formed in 2016, and now Remo Stars, founded in 2010- show how poor the traditional teams have become.
Sadly, these traditional teams are not only failing on the pitch or trophy-wise; structurally, they are a failure to Nigerian football. A few of the traditional clubs are either only surviving relegation or struggling to finish in the top half of the table on the pitch and off it, it is one fan’s violence to the other, management or technical crew issues, or continuous financial issues, to mention a few.
While they have failed to make their past glories a foundation for more glory and dominance, new clubs have sprung up and overshadowed them.
Remo Stars is the New NPFL Tradition
Now, every new football club and every football academy in Nigeria are looking to replicate what I call the “Soname Model.” Well, it is the actual way a football club should but in Nigeria, but it is a totally new system of football business, and everyone is in awe.
A club that has its facilities, a competitive squad, and a very active academy that keeps churning out talents after talent that have fetched the club finances beyond imagination, with continuous sales of these talents to Europe, South America, and other football business-minded parts of Africa.
This is the basic system of football business, but a very new and eye-opening style in Nigeria. Looking at the title-winning team of the Sky Blue Stars, at least 5 players were groomed right from scratch by the club. Ahmed Akinyele, Stanley Joseph, Haruna Hadi, Sodiq Ismail, Junior Nduka, and Olalekan Adedayo are a few of the players who came in through the ranks at the club.
When Kunle Soname decided he was leaving Lagos, back to his hometown to build the club, many would have thought he made the wrong move. But here is a man who had an imagination and knew exactly how he wanted to execute the imagination. This is something a lot of our administrators lack: the foresight to achieve greater things.
NPFL Remo Stars: Big Win For Private Clubs
But for the private clubs in Nigerian football, this is a huge win and huge motivation for them. They will look at the Remo Stars model and believe that they can do it just like Julius Berger, Udoji United, Racca Rovers, New Nigeria Bank, Leventis United, and Stationery Stores also did.
So, there is a new sheriff in town in all ramifications. A new league champion and one who looks like he has come to stay. A well-financed and managed club and a talent-producing outfit. So yes, Remo Stars should be the best in the land.
