{"id":30097,"date":"2020-09-07T13:43:33","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T13:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=30097"},"modified":"2020-09-07T13:43:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T13:43:43","slug":"covid-19-we-cant-take-anything-for-granted-minister-tells-npfl-amid-restart-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=30097","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: We can\u2019t take anything for granted, Minister tells NPFL amid restart talks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Amid talks of possible return of the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) this year, the Minister of Youth and Sports development, Sunday Dare has warned the organizers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The league was ended prematurely last season due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic as all sporting activities were suspended in the country since March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there have been talks of starting a new season after the Federal Government of Nigeria, following the advice of the Presidential Taskforce (PTF) on COVID-19, lifted the ban on sports across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are happy that the ban on sports has been lifted after so many months of inactivity,\u201d the Ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Ministry is not oblivious of the challenges that would be encountered in organising football matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cannot take anything for granted. As a way of safeguarding the lives of our players, coaches, officials and fans, approval must be sought and given before any game is played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Ministry would ensure that all protocols and guidelines are obeyed as directed by PTF and NCDC.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statement added: \u201cThe domestic League will not commence until the regulations and controls bothering on financial and licensing control are enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sports Ministry has set up a COVID-19 monitoring and approval team which would ensure compliance before any game is played, and has directed the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to communicate the decisions to the clubs to forestall any crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid talks of possible return of the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) this year, the Minister of Youth and Sports development, Sunday Dare has warned the organizers. The league was ended prematurely last season due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic as all sporting activities were suspended in the country since March. But there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nCOVID-19: We can\u2019t take anything for granted, Minister tells NPFL amid restart talks » WatchDog Plus Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=30097\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Odofin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=30097#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Sports\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=8\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"COVID-19: We can\u2019t take anything for granted, Minister tells NPFL amid restart talks\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"COVID-19: We can\u2019t take anything for granted, Minister tells NPFL amid restart talks » WatchDog Plus Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=30097","author":"Odofin","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=30097#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sports","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=8"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"COVID-19: We can\u2019t take anything for granted, Minister tells NPFL amid restart talks"}]}]}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Odofin","author_link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?author=2"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=8\" rel=\"category\">Sports<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Amid talks of possible return of the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) this year, the Minister of Youth and Sports development, Sunday Dare has warned the organizers. The league was ended prematurely last season due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic as all sporting activities were suspended in the country since March. But there…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30097"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}