MTN Nigeria Premier League
Country	Nigeria
Confederation	CAF
Founded	1972
Number of teams	20
Relegation to	Nigeria National League
Level on pyramid	[[{{{nationalitylevel}}} football league system#Level 1|Level 1]]
Domestic cup(s)	Nigerian FA Cup
CAF cup(s)	Champions League Confederation Cup
Current champions	Enyimba F.C. (2009-10)
Website	Official website
2011–12 Nigeria Premier League

The Nigeria Premier League is the highest level of domestic Nigerian football. It is fed into by the two First Division groups: the Nigerian Division 1-A and Nigerian Division 1-B. It is organized by the Nigeria Football Association. The NPL Chairman is Davidson Owunmi. Enyimba F.C. are the current champions.

History Edit

The league was founded in 1972 with six teams. On Saturday 12 May 1990 at the Onikan Stadium Lagos, the league was rechristened the "Professional League" with a goal to modernize the game and make clubs self-sufficient. Decrees 10 and 11 which codified the introduction of professional football in Nigeria stipulated that professional clubs should be run as limited liability companies each governed by a regularly constituted board of directors and required to hold annual general meetings, present independently audited accounts, cultivate youth/feeder teams and own their own stadium within five years of registration with the Pro League Department. To assist Pro League clubs in the timely achievement of these stated goals, all 56 professional club-sides that constituted the inaugural Pro League First and Second Division were granted a five-year tax moratorium on all income starting from 1990.

From 1999-2007, there was an end of season Championship called the "Super Four". The top four teams would play a round robin mini-league at a neutral site to determine the league champion. The Super Four is now a pre-season tournament featuring the top four teams of the prior year.

After the 2006 competition, the league changed its calendar to more closely match the common European regular season structure (starting around August and ending around May). The Premier League is managed by the Nigeria Professional League Board.

2010–11 seasonEdit

The following teams were relegated to the National League at the end of the 2009-10 season

• Bayelsa United (Yenegoa)
• Gateway (Abeokuta)
• Ranchers Bees (Kaduna)
• Wikki Tourists (Bauchi)

Winners Edit

TopscorersEdit

Year	Best scorers	Team	Goals
2002	Joetex Frimpong	El-Kanemi Warriors	16
2003	Chibuzor Ozurumba Endurance Idahor	Iwuanyanwu Nationale Julius Berger	13
2004	Kabiru Alausa	Julius Berger	13
2005	Timothy Anjembe Joseph Akpala	Lobi Stars Bendel Insurance	12
2006	Ikechukwu Ibenegbu	El-Kanemi Warriors	10
2007	Ameh Arewa	Kaduna United	10
2007-08	Abubakar Babale	Wikki Tourists/Sunshine Stars	14
2008-09	Orok Akarandut	Akwa United	17
2009-10	Ahmed Musa	Kano Pillars	18

^[1]

References Edit

External links Edit

• Official Site
• RSSSF competition history

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Nigeria Premier League. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with UK Football Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.