Rivers United, denied the Nigeria Premier Football League title by a single point on the final day of last season, have been installed as favourites for the 2026/27 championship by a new data-driven prediction platform.
Made In Africa Sport unveiled the model, branded the “MIAS Supercomputer”, as the new campaign began with Shooting Stars defeating newly promoted Inter Lagos 2-1 at the Lekan Salami Stadium in Ibadan on Friday.
The launch was announced in a statement signed by MIAS co-founder and Team Lead, Olamide Abe.
The model gives Rivers United a 37.6 per cent chance of winning the title, making the Port Harcourt club more than twice as likely to finish top as defending champions Rangers International.
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Rangers have been assigned a 15.7 per cent title probability, while Enyimba are rated at 13.8 per cent. Ikorodu City and Kano Pillars complete the model’s projected top five.
At the opposite end, newly promoted Ranchers Bees face the greatest danger, with a 94.9 per cent probability of relegation.
Doma United have been given a 55 per cent relegation risk, followed by Katsina United at 29.7 per cent. The projected final table places Sporting Lagos in the fourth relegation position.
The MIAS platform was developed to predict match results, expected goals and the possible final position of every club in the 20-team league.
According to the statement signed by Abe, the model uses a database containing about 8,000 historical NPFL matches and considers recent form, head-to-head records, home and away performances, goalscoring figures and transfer activity.
To produce its season projections, the system simulates the complete 380-match campaign 100,000 times, generating 38 million simulated match outcomes.
Those simulations allow the model to estimate each club’s chances of winning the title, qualifying for continental competition or suffering relegation, rather than offering only one projected final table.
The prediction in favour of Rivers United comes after one of the closest NPFL title races in recent years.
Rangers entered the final day of the 2025/26 campaign with 65 points, one ahead of Rivers United, knowing victory away to Ikorodu City would guarantee the championship.
The task was far from straightforward. Ikorodu City had not lost at home throughout the season, while Rivers United hosted Katsina United in Port Harcourt and were waiting to take advantage of any Rangers slip.
Rangers captain Chidiebere Nwobodo scored twice as the Flying Antelopes defeated Ikorodu City 2-1 at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena in Lagos.
Rivers United did everything required of them elsewhere, recording an emphatic 3-0 victory over Katsina United, but Rangers’ result meant the title remained beyond their reach.
Rangers finished with 68 points, just one ahead of Rivers United on 67, after a race that went down to the final whistle on Matchday 38.
The triumph gave Rangers their ninth Nigerian league title, drawing them level with Enyimba as the country’s most successful top-flight club.
The new MIAS projection is therefore backing Rivers United to go one step further this season and dethrone the team that narrowly beat them to the championship in May.
It also provides an early indication that the model expects another strong challenge from the two clubs that took last season’s title race to the final day.
“For a league with as much history as the NPFL, we still do not use enough of the data we have,” MIAS Executive Director Enitan Obadina said.
“Every week, there are conversations about which team is in form, who will win a match or who is likely to challenge for the title, but a lot of those conversations are based on opinion and eye-test.
“What we are trying to do is put a proper data layer behind those conversations. We have gone through thousands of historical matches and built a system that can turn that information into something people can actually use to understand the league.”
The model correctly selected a Shooting Stars victory in Friday’s opening game after giving the Ibadan club a 67.9 per cent chance of beating Inter Lagos.
The probability of a draw was 22.2 per cent, while Inter Lagos were given a 9.9 per cent chance of winning their first NPFL match.
Shooting Stars eventually won 2-1, although Inter Lagos performed better in front of goal than the model’s expected-goals projection of 1.73 to 0.49 suggested.
The platform predicted home victories in all 10 Matchday One fixtures.
Ikorodu City received the strongest backing, with a 90.8 per cent chance of defeating Ranchers Bees. Rangers have a 76.6 per cent probability of beginning their title defence with a victory over Katsina United, while Rivers United are rated at 71 per cent to beat Plateau United.
Across the full season, the model projects 236 home wins, 97 draws and only 47 away victories.
That weighting reflects the pronounced home advantage in the Nigerian top flight. Data presented by MIAS shows that visiting teams won only 601 of the 7,966 NPFL matches played from 2003 through last season, representing 7.5 per cent of all games.
Recent form is given the greatest weight in individual match predictions, with the system assessing each club’s previous five games. Away victories receive additional value because of their relative rarity in the NPFL.
The platform also rates each team’s attack and defence against the league average. A rating of 1.00 represents an average NPFL team, while transfer scores are used to account for changes in squad strength that may not yet be reflected in previous results.
Obadina stressed that the model’s projections should not be regarded as guarantees or replacements for football knowledge and judgement.
“We are not saying the computer knows what will happen. Football does not work like that,” he said.
“What it can do is show the probability based on the evidence available to it, and that gives you a much better starting point than simply saying a team will win because it looks stronger on paper.”
At launch, the platform displayed its full-season projected table and title, continental qualification and relegation probabilities. Detailed match predictions were available for Matchday One, with subsequent forecasts to be published as the campaign progresses.
MIAS said the figures would be updated after each round to reflect new results and changes in the performances of the clubs.
The company plans to develop the model beyond the 2026/27 season as part of a wider effort to build reliable data infrastructure for African football.
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