Three Nigeria Women Football League Premiership clubs Sunshine Queens, Heartland Queens and Dream Stars FC may face disqualification from the 2020/21 season because they failed to take part in registration and licensing of clubs for the new season which closed on Monday.

This was made known in a letter signed by the Chief Operating Officer of the NWFL, Faith Ben-Anuge, addressed to clubs.

 While eight clubs had concluded all of the registration processes, five others were yet to complete the process and the other three clubs however failed to show up at the NWFL office in Abuja.

President of the NWFL, Aisha Falode, said the league body insisted on the licensing for clubs to ensure the league has a quality standard after experiences of previous seasons.

“We had said before COVID-19 truncated our plans for the new season that we were going to be strict and rigid with the standards of clubs playing in our leagues, most especially in the Premiership and that these standards must be met. We needed to be strict because news came to us from some players who complained of being owed as much as seven to eight months of salaries.

“We also had to bail out Heartland and other clubs so as to honour their matches last season, this we didn’t want to continue to do. This was why we mandated clubs to bring with them for their licensing statement of payment of salaries, certificates of registration which confirmed their registration status and other required papers,” Falode said.

She also lauded Robo FC for being the first club to complete the registration process and added that the league body would meet to rework the fixtures to accommodate only clubs that met the registration criteria.

Responding to the matter, Ben-Anuge, said Dream Stars FC got in touch with the NWFL after the letter on Monday.

“The clubs that were categorised as ongoing have one issue or the other to deal with, which didn’t make their papers to be complete. Some had to do with their registration with the CAC (Corporate Affairs Commission), others had to do with transfer of players, where the other club said they had not yet paid the transfer fees.

“For those who are defaulting in salaries, we asked them to at least pay four months and get a letter of guarantee from their sponsors.

“For the defaulters, they did not even send anything to us until they saw our letter. Dream Stars reached out yesterday and said they’ll come with their papers today. But I told them registration had closed and if we are to accept them, they’ll have to pay a fine. Heartland also sent a letter that they had dissolved their board,” she said.