2025/26 NPFL season: We have big plans for Shooting Stars – Lekan Salami

The newly appointed Chairman of Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) of Ibadan, Honourable Taiwo Lekan Salami, has revealed his plans for the Ibadan- based club and former league champions.

Lekan Salami, who stated this while speaking with journalists at the Annual General Meeting/2025/2026 NPFL Season’s Draws which was held at the Abuja Continental Hotel, Abuja on Monday, said he is coming with a 3Rs program namely Reengineering, Restructuring and Repositioning saying it’s going to change the course of the club in the long term.

While admitting that 3SC is a big and traditional club not only for Ibadan but for the whole of South West Nigeria, the chairman said they have brought on board a very experienced coach and have recruited players who would add value to the club promising that the board is taking every step to return 3SC to its glorious past.

He said, “We have a very structured, transformational program for Shooting Stars. I like to tag them 3Rs which is we want to reengineer the club, we want to restructure and we want to reposition the club for future growth and development. Football is big business. You can see what we are doing in the social media space. There are so many things we are making sure we get right.”

On the team’s season opener against newly promoted Bayelsa United, Lekan Salami urged fans and supporters to continue to rally round and pray for the team.

“First, I want to encourage our supporters to come out enmasse (for the Bayelsa United game), come and witness the new team and new football philosophy that we are bringing to Shooting Stars. The glory days are back as far as I’m concerned.

“Of course, we’re expected to play well and naturally we’re expected to win we are playing at home. Just come out, support us, pray for us most importantly and surely we’ll do you proud.”

The chairman of the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL), Honourable Gbenga Elegbeleye, also emphasised what the league body is doing to maintain the sanity of the NPFL saying he has no regret about the steps taken so far about it.

He said clubs have been whipped into line through points deduction so they can conform with the rules and regulations of the league and display all sense of professionalism to promote the game of football in Nigeria.

“In terms of crisis, we have devise a system where we’ll deduct three points from any club. It is better than asking them to pay money. When you slap a referee, beat up a referee, you invade pitches and then you ask them to pay N5 million or N1 million, next home match they will still do that. Anybody can pay N1 million but no club would want to lose three points. That is why we’re doing that. We’ve not regret anybody can campaign against it. We are resolute about it.

“We had a season that we feel we fulfilled our aspirations in terms of organisation, in terms of management and in terms of the calendar we desired to have. We’re able to achieve that in terms of officiating too. Nothing is perfect but we believe we’d a tremendous improvement.

“We have been able to align our calendar with that of international leagues in Europe which was achieved. We’ve also been able to improve in terms of facilities at the stadium and also stadiums that are not good enough were banned but we look forward to a massive improvement about that,” Elegbeleye stated.

Also speaking, the Executive Director, GTI Asset, one of the league partners, expressed happiness about the development of the league in the last three seasons and especially the fact that the league calendar is in sync with leading foreign leagues across the globe and the rate of attendance at the league centres nationwide.

He said, “Last season was quite revealing. For once, the competitive balance of the league was very high. There were a lot of fair play and people were happy with the outcome. Also, in terms of broadcast, there was visibility for most of the matches. And apart from the TV broadcast, we’ve also have partnership with the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) to also have radio commentary and that was done last season and we’ve learnt a lot.

“Quite a lot of things need to be done. We are still in the transformation phase of this league and we’ve been taking it step by step. But based on what we’ve learnt in the last three seasons working with the league, it’s obvious that we still need to do more to get to our objectives.

“Today we can say that the calendar of the league has been regularised which is a huge investment for the ecosystem. Today we can see that attendance at match venues have improved significantly. We can also say that about the officiating.”

Tribunesports Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) of Ibadan will open their 2025/26 NPFL season against newly promoted Bayelsa United of Yenagoa at the Lekan Salami Stadium in Ibadan. This was revealed during the NPFL’s Annual General Meeting and Draws which was held on Monday at the Abuja Continental Hotel.

According to the chief operating officer (COO), Davidson Owumi, the Star match of the opener will be between current champions, Remo Stars of Ikenne and the immediate past winners, Rivers United of Port Harcourt.

Full fixtures

Shooting Stars v Bayelsa United
Abia v Kano Pillars
Katsina United v Warri Wolves
Rangers International v Kun Khalifa
Remo Stars v Rivers (Star match)
Kwara United v Ikorodu United
El Kanemi v Bendel Insurance
Barau v Enyimba
Niger Tornadoes v Nasarawa United
Wikki Tourists v Plateau United