By Sab Osuji

Naze Millionaires, Heartland FC have expressed displeasure over the refusal of the Nigeria Premier Football League, NPFL, to grant their 'candid' request of slight adjustment in the kick off time of their Match Day Seven Oriental Derby away to eternal rivals, Rangers, on Sunday, 5 November, 2023, Exclusivenews.com.ng reports.

The fixture is billed for Rangers transit home ground, Awka City Stadium, at 4pm.

But the Naze Millionaires are asking the league body to slightly bring forward the kick off time to between 2-3pm, reasoning that by so doing, the club would have enough time to return to their Owerri base in view of the security situation in the South East with its attendant 'sit-at-home' on Mondays.

But their request was turned down by the organisers of the domestic top flight, who reason that sanctioning the request would affect the broadcast time of the game as the Over The Top (OTT) of the game would be negatively affected.

The league body insisted that they do not want to alter the arrangements they have made with their Over the Top (OTT) Broadcast partners, Propel Sports, as regards the timing of the game.

Consequently, a highly embittered Promise Nwachukwu, General Manager of the club, told the club's media that Heartland, as a club, are not happy with the decision of the NPFL  not to grant their request.

Nwachukwu, a former Nigeria junior international, wondered why such an honest request could be turned down despite its obvious importance and need in view of security concerns in the South East.

He also recalled that they had previously made similar sacrifices for visiting teams in the past and wondered why theirs would be different.

"We had expected the NPFL to show us a face of understanding and concern in the present circumstance", the lanky fair-skinned Heartland boss said.

"We also expected NPFL to be humane in their actions and strive to put into consideration the cogent reasons we, as a club, put up as reasons for the request for an early kick off against Rangers than the flippant throwing out of the request".

"The decision not to grant our request for an early kick off of Sunday's game with Rangers International does not sit well with us at all", Nwachukwu further emphasised. 

"We wrote to the NPFL with the mindset that we would be heard and that the league body would consider the safety of our players and officials as important over other issues.

"We all know the situation of the South East on Mondays with the 'sit-at-home'. We do not want to endanger the lives of our players and officials. It was because of this that we wrote to the NPFL beckoning on them for the game to start earlier than 4pm so that we can return to our base without issues at the end of the game.

"We are not requesting for what is out of place. It is similar thing we have done for other teams that have visited us who requested for their games to be played early for the same reason. Why should our own be different?"