Nigerian billionaire Kunle Soname is being pushed to run the NFF, and he keeps saying no

Nigeria's football establishment has collapsed and the man it wants to rebuild it says he does not want the job.

Kunle Soname founded Bet9ja, Nigeria's largest sports betting company, and founded and owns Remo Stars, the club that won the Nigeria Premier Football League title in the 2024/25 season. He is the National Sports Commission's preferred candidate for the interim presidency of the Nigeria Football Federation, according to reports that followed the mass resignation of the federation's leadership last week.

Sources at the commission say he has been approached to head a reform committee and is reluctant to take it on because of his schedule. One of them has said the commission is trying to get the presidency to encourage him, arguing that restructuring Nigerian football and getting it working again would be among the greatest things anyone could do for the country.

Soname has already refused once. Asked about the speculation before the resignations, he said he had read about it in newspapers and blogs like everyone else, that he was not interested in the NFF presidency, and that he does not jostle for positions.

The circumstances have since changed completely.

Ibrahim Musa Gusau resigned as NFF president on Aug. 27, together with general secretary Mohammed Sanusi and, according to reports, most of the executive committee. Two failures in the same cycle triggered it. The Super Eagles did not qualify for the 2026 World Cup, and the Super Falcons missed the 2027 Women's World Cup, the first time Nigeria's women's team has been absent since the tournament began in 1991.

President Bola Tinubu has ordered a comprehensive reform of Nigerian football covering governance, administration, stakeholder representation, development pathways, domestic competitions and accountability.

That is the vacuum Soname is being asked to fill.

His case rests on having built something that works. He founded the club as FC Dender in 2004 and took it up through the divisions, winning promotion to the second tier in 2010, rebranding it as Remo Stars after relocating to Remoland in Ogun State, reaching the top flight in 2016, surviving relegation in 2018, returning in 2021 and winning the league in 2025. The club plays at a 5,000-capacity stadium in Ikenne, and he founded a women's side, Remo Stars Ladies, in 2022.

He also owns the Portuguese club Clube Desportivo Feirense, founded the Beyond Limits Football Academy to develop young players, and owns ValueJet Airlines.

What that record demonstrates is that a Nigerian club can be run on long-term private planning rather than government money, which is the argument his supporters make for putting him in charge of the whole system.

The objections are equally clear. Soname has never run a national federation, and managing Remo Stars is a different problem from managing national teams, 37 state football associations, refereeing, grassroots and women's football, youth competitions and relationships with FIFA and the Confederation of African Football. Critics have also asked whether the owner of a league club should control the body that regulates the league.

A further complication sits in where the money comes from. Soname's fortune was built on betting, and the NFF governs the competitions Bet9ja takes wagers on.

Others are being discussed alongside him. Amaju Pinnick, who led the federation from 2014 to 2022, and Segun Odegbami, the former Green Eagles captain and 1980 Africa Cup of Nations winner, are both named in reports on the interim role. Former Lagos governor Babatunde Fashola, former NFF secretary general Musa Amadu and former sports commission director general Patrick Ekeji have also been tipped to head the reform committee. Obafemi Martins has publicly backed Seyi Tinubu, the president's son.

Whoever takes it inherits a federation whose entire executive walked out, a reform programme ordered from the presidency, and two national teams that missed the tournaments that matter.