There is palpable fear in sports circles over a recent proposal by Arabella 21st Century, a sports promo/marketing company, to invest, alongside some other investors in the United Kingdom, about $1.5 billion in the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL).

The proposed investment by the investors has generated heated buzz in the United Kingdom since its announcement among Nigerian sports enthusiasts who are concerned about the reality of such investment coming from Europe at this time. An investigation carried out by the UK-based BEN TV in a bid to establish the corporate existence of Arabella 21st Century reportedly turned out negative as the UK Company House did not have any record of it in its system.

A statement on BEN TV’s findings said: “In fact, the only known website for Arabella 21st Century has its domain name suspended since September 30th 2016 for inability to renew it. The suspension of Arabella 21st Century domain name since September could have caused the panic among sports enthusiasts who felt a company willing to invest $1.5 billion in Nigeria but could not afford a few dollars, less than $100, to renew its domain name must be unserious or at best itself looking for survival strategy in Nigeria.

“The only known project with Arabella 21st Century was the award of a contract to manage the arenas for the 15th National Sports Festival by Ogun State Gateway Games Commission in 2006. How well did Arabella 21st Century perform in the task of managing that project can only be answered by Ogun State Gateway Commission.

“The news of such investment is a welcome development and a relief to many followers of Nigeria’s Professional Football League. The amount is staggering, capable of turning Nigeria’s sports around for the best and a huge step forward, however, it will be another blow to this government if it ended being another false hope.

“While we are not questioning the possible interest of Arabella 21st Century’s investment in Nigeria, we think the company and the proprietors need to sort out the company’s identity, make its presence known to UK authority, the Company House, if it is trading from the UK as we are made to believe and resolve its few bucks payment for its website domain renewal, at least for Nigerians to check them out and their profile especially in sports and related projects management.”

Update news