Why it’s difficult for northern clubs to win NPL titles –Maikaba

The coach explained that clubs in the north suffer a lot from the long distances they cover in the course of attending away matches.Speaking to Daily Trust on road trips in the NPL, the former Enyimba FC coach said over sixty per cent of clubs in the league are based in the southern part of […]

The coach explained that clubs in the north suffer a lot from the long distances they cover in the course of attending away matches.
Speaking to Daily Trust on road trips in the NPL, the former Enyimba FC coach said over sixty per cent of clubs in the league are based in the southern part of the country which makes it very easy for them to attend away matches.
He said while it takes the clubs a shorter time to honour their way matches, clubs in the far north travel long distances to play away matches saying the situation has been made worse by the decision of the LMC to include mid-week matches in the fixtures.
Maikaba said while clubs in the South-South and South-East teams have enough time to rest before playing their next game, northern clubs spend long hours travelling back and when they reach home, they hardly rest before taking to the field again.
He said “Clubs in the South have advantage over us because they cover shorter distances while we usually travel long distances. “ We have only six premier clubs up north. The south has about sixty per cent of the clubs in the Nigerian Premier League so the distances they cover is shorter compare to those clubs in the north.
 For instance, if Enyimba is playing Bayesla, it is only three hours, if Enyimba is playing Heartland it is one hour, if Dolphin is playing Enyimba, it is one hour and Sharks and Dolphins are playing in the same town”.
The coach said even as Pillars have set the pace by travelling four times by air this season, it was not easy because they had to take connecting flight and the short distances they covered by road still exposed them to almost the same stress they tried to avoid.
He said the non-availability of direct flights from most of the northern states to the south is not helping matters as he maintained that even when clubs want to use flights, it is still a problem.
“I agree with Coach Eguma who suggested that teams should be flying but that is if the flights are available for the clubs. You see there is no flight direct flight from Kano to Port-Harcourt. So even when flew to Port-Harcourt, we first travelled by road to Abuja to board a flight to Port-Harcourt”, he said.
The coach therefore said going by the above scenario, it is always very difficult for clubs in the north to win the league.