Following the failure to qualify for the Nations Cup, Nigerian football is once again challenged to look seriously at its shortcomings and find new mechanisms to generate sustainable growth in the system.
In response to this, new NFF Chairman Amaju Pinnick is looking to rebuild the Super Eagles by recruiting players of Nigerian parentage in the diaspora and has recently held meetings with Chuba Akpom, the young Arsenal prospect.
In this age of globalization and international migration, the nature of citizenship has changed. Indeed this is why I had in the past called for a football policy for the diaspora.
However, the need for such a policy does not, and cannot replace the hard job of rebuilding Nigerian football from the domestic game. True, there are many high quality footballers of Nigerian parentage in Europe. My team Liverpool has a host of them, including Jordon Ibe, Thiago Ilori, Ovie Ejara and the prodigious Sheyi Ojo.
But anyone who understands how young players emerge and are developed will tell you that there are no guarantees. The history of European youth academies is riddled with the carcass of the careers of once promising youth prospects who failed to make the grade after an initial flourish. To therefore base a substantial portion of rebuilding the national team on diaspora youth is at best a risky proposition. It is in this regard that I find Mr. Pinnick's approach to be highly flawed.
In my opinion, theNigeria
In response to this, new NFF Chairman Amaju Pinnick is looking to rebuild the Super Eagles by recruiting players of Nigerian parentage in the diaspora and has recently held meetings with Chuba Akpom, the young Arsenal prospect.
In this age of globalization and international migration, the nature of citizenship has changed. Indeed this is why I had in the past called for a football policy for the diaspora.
However, the need for such a policy does not, and cannot replace the hard job of rebuilding Nigerian football from the domestic game. True, there are many high quality footballers of Nigerian parentage in Europe. My team Liverpool has a host of them, including Jordon Ibe, Thiago Ilori, Ovie Ejara and the prodigious Sheyi Ojo.
But anyone who understands how young players emerge and are developed will tell you that there are no guarantees. The history of European youth academies is riddled with the carcass of the careers of once promising youth prospects who failed to make the grade after an initial flourish. To therefore base a substantial portion of rebuilding the national team on diaspora youth is at best a risky proposition. It is in this regard that I find Mr. Pinnick's approach to be highly flawed.
In my opinion, the
Nigeria's approach to implementing this project has been unfortunately narrowly focused on developing the U-13 and U-15 teams with the primary purpose of feeding the U-17 teams. While this may have been successful in wining age grade competitions, it has had little or no impact on the broader Nigerian domestic game, as a similar program has had for Germany, Switzerland, Chile and Mexico. What is more, some of the technical weaknesses which bedevil talent development at the grassroots level remain, as we see with the current U-17 team.
As part of the Goal project, the then NFF had proposed to establish regional centers as a base for recruiting and training the best players in the various age groups. Before these centers were created, it was planned that coaches will be educated in preparation for their role as talent scouts. However, there was no indication in the plan how these coaches would be trained.
The weakness of this approach was obvious from the start. The truth is that the main promoters of grassroots youth football in Nigeria lie outside the NFF and state federations.
Grassroots football in Nigeria is alive and well by virtue of its non-reliance on government subsidies. There is however a glaring shortage of qualified coaches, equipment, including playing surfaces, and requisite programs for proper training and monitoring of youth footballers.
More importantly, there is a lack of coordination of programs and harmonization of training methodology to avoid a situation where academies exist merely to facilitate the sale of players abroad.
To simply construct regional centres does not begin to address the needs of this crucial sub-sector of Nigerian football.
1. First there is need to put in place, a structure within the NFF for collaborating with the youth leagues, associations and clubs that proliferate in such cities as Lagos, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Aba, Benin, Warri, etc. An easy solution might be to adopt the organizational framework of the Pepsi Academy
- Establish a youth department at the NFF with requisite infrastructure
- Mandate all grassroots associations and youth clubs to register with the department, AT NO COST; providing basic information on club and especially the bio-data of players, programs, etc. this will need to be phased, starting with
- Through consultation, synchronize the competition calendar of the grassroots leagues and clubs across the various regions and then nationally.
Thus, the primary goal of this department would be to serve as a coordinating body for youth football in Nigeria , streamlining calendars, facilitating the use of the Centers, providing coaches and other technical resources, and maintaining a database. The implication of this is that the actual implementation of the programs for youth football will remain with the promoters of grassroots football. This is crucial, as government intervention through the NFF will ultimately destroy this fledgling sub-sector of our football.
2. Establish the Goal Project’s national technical centre (NTC) as the primary institutional basis for the program. In my opinion, the Regional Centers can only be successful if a strong NTC is first put in place with requisite infrastructure. But more importantly, the NTC needs to be established as a training center for youth team coaches who can then be deployed to the regional centers to identify and train talented youths in their regions, and recommend the best prospects to the national level.
To build regional centers without addressing key programmatic issues in the youth sub-sector just does not cut it. In the end, such regional centers will join several other white elephant projects that have been abandoned and today litter the Nigerian landscape.
The Nigeria Goal Project needs to be restructured as a vehicle for sustainable development of youth football in Nigeria. More importantly, a program needs to be effectively put in place, involving the key drivers of the youth football sub-sector in Nigeria , so that the regional centers are able to truly address the needs for which they are created.
3. Thirdly, the NFF should seek the assistance of Chelsea's Director of Football, Mike Emenalo in the recruitment of a Technical Director to run this program. Such a coach should be one that is experienced in developmental programs of this nature, The recommendation is made because there are not too many Nigerians with the depth of knowledge and experience to creatively develop and manage such a program.
4. With the Technical Director in place, and in consultation with the youth clubs, streamline and adopt a synchronized framework to guide the training and development of young players by all youth clubs and age grade national teams, but with enough flexibility for innovative ideas to grow.
5. Develop a system of incentives and support services for the clubs, including playing kits. The Adidas contract should have a provision through which to fund this, and indeed other aspects of this programme. If one does not exist, then requisite sponsorship for such should be developed.
6. In addition to this, the NFF should invoke the relevant section of the CAF ‘Contract with Africa’ and develop a funding proposal to CAF to finance the administration of this program.
7. The Technical Director should, in addition to his primary responsibilities, also provide technical assistance to the senior national team, and assume a back-room advisory role during such tournaments as the Africa Nations Cup and the World Cup. This way, the direct day to day management of the national team is left with a local coach who is made to grow with the team.
8. But more importantly, this initiative requires that Nigeria invest in a new generation of coaches, with emphasis on players with experience of European football as well as others with demonstrated ambition to excel in the profession. However for each of these ex-footballers, a minimum qualification should be the CAF or UEFA license, which can be secured even while on the job, but subject to a specified deadline. The CAF ‘Contract with Africa’ and its coaching program offers the best prospects for enhancing the capability of coaches already involved in youth football, and streamlining youth coaching under this program.
9. Changes in the management of football, including the transfer system resulting from the Bosman ruling in Europe has made the entry level into the European league much more difficult than a few years ago. The availability of quality players from Eastern Europe has further restricted the availability of places for African players. The result is that too many of our talented players are forced to remain in the lower leagues of Europe in such places as Malta, Albania, Latvia, Cyprus, with many ultimately lost to the game.
10. While the availability of quality players based in top European teams will remain important in the foreseeable future, the long term future of Nigerian football lies more in developing the domestic game, especially at the youth level, than in the academies of Liverpool, Arsenal or Barcelona's La Masia.
