Chairman, Lobi Stars FC of Makurdi, Terver Ikya has revealed that management under his watch inherited over N200 million debt and poor handover notes from his predecessors.
Ikya who made the revelation during an interaction with sports journalists yesterday in Makurdi, was not categorical whether it was Dominic Iorfa’s tenure or that of Philip Nongu that left the liabilities, expressing further shock that apart from the official figures given, some debt were not even recorded or contained in the handover notes .
He lamented that the Club’s bus was recently attached for N47 million, for a judgement delivered against the club in 2024 before his assumption of office, which was not even communicated to him either verbally or in the handover documents.
Ikya stated that his management’s target on assumption was simply to gain promotion back to the Nigeria Premier Football League, NPFL, lamenting that numerous challenges hindered the desire.
According to Ikya, his administration inherited a team with a low spirit and a coach signed by previous leadership who was later suspended because of poor performance.
“There was no way we would have sacked a coach at that particular time since we did not know the players, we allowed him to stay even though we discovered after our two matches with Gombe and Doma that he was not good enough for the club.
“We sat down after these two matches as management and placed him on suspension, we would have sacked him but avoid another controversy. We now asked his assistant to take over as head coach” Ikya explained, expressing fear that Lobi would have been struggling with relegation in NNL if the same coach was allowed to remain.
Ikya who said playing in Lafia was another big challenge because the people had a team that was playing in the same group with Lobi Stars, further revealed that the club inherited about 67 players with most of them playing on contract that were not terminated and were already receiving salaries.
He said despite management’s ability to handle such cases in a manner that would reduce financial burden on the account that such people were already in the system, his management had over 16 cases at the arbitration tribunal bothering on wrongful termination, describing the development as a major distraction that prevented the club from gaining promotion to the premier league
Ikya who described finishing second in the Nigeria National League, NNL, as a good feat, considering the challenges his management met on ground, said he remains grateful with the present placement of Lobi Stars instead of going to fight relegation..