Dr Ini-Obong Nkang

Programme Leader, BA (Hons) Sports Business & Sports Law

Ini-Obong is a researcher who is passionate about football in general, and African football in particular. He has undertaken significant research on the trafficking of African football minors across the globe, and has proffered several recommendations in a bid to curb the problem. An often repeated tagline of his is “you cannot legislate against international inequality”, and it is to this effect that Ini-Obong’s research has centred on the use of football as an agent for sustainable long-term community development in African countries. This is in order to limit the continued occurrence of football trafficking whilst simultaneously improving the standard of African football.

Ini-Obong has published his research in academic journals such as the African Sports Law and Business Journal, and he has also written mainstream articles for The Conversation and Sport Cal, and he contributed to the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group on Sport, Human Rights and Modern Slavery inquiry into the impact of mega-sporting events on human rights. Ini-Obong has appeared on international television to discuss the regulatory issues around football trafficking, he has been invited to attend and present his research at several Law conferences across the UK, and he has participated in virtual multi-disciplinary conferences with a global audience to discuss his area of research and publicise his recommendations for countering football trafficking.

Ini-Obong concluded his PhD in Sports Law at Nottingham Trent University, and this was after he completed his LL.B (Hons.) at the University of Kent, and returned to his home country to qualify as Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Ini-Obong was the module leader and lecturer of the Data Protection and Privacy masters module at Nottingham Trent University. Ini-Obong has experience working as a Legal Practitioner at a Law firm in Nigeria, and he also has legal work experience in the UK, after putting himself forward to be a Student Adviser for the Business and Enterprise law and Employment law services within Nottingham Law School’s Legal Advice Centre.