Socio-economic significance of football viewing centres in ife central local government area, Osun state, Nigeria.

Establishment of small and medium scale businesses cannot be over emphasized. However, it seems the socio-economic status of Ile-Ife people were not affected positively in terms of employment level and poverty alleviation. In ameliorating poverty and meeting ends needs in the face of increasing unemployment and economic recession leads to the development of football viewing centres. It is in view of this that this study was designed to investigate the spatial distribution and socio-economic effect of football viewing centres in the study Area. Descriptive survey research design was used in this study. The population of the study consisted of all the 51 football viewing centres in Ife central Local Government Area of Osun State as well as other business men and women around the viewing centres. Two self-designed instruments (qualitative and quantitative) were used to collect data for this study. The researcher engage the use of longitude and latitude readings from Sextants which is a navigation instrument to establish the spatial distributions of all the football viewing centres The study concluded that, football viewing centres are distributed clusterly in Ile-Ife. It was also discovered that football viewing centers have a great effect on the business activities hence; it reduces poverty. It also showed that there were challenges confronting football viewing centres in the study area ranging from high cost of subscription, lack of stable power supply, fighting among others. Hence, this study submitted that football viewing centres positively enhance effective delivery and achievement of business goals in Ile-Ife. Based on the findings of the study, some recommendations were made.