Nigerian football needs a radical revolution to reclaim its glory days, when the mention of the Super Eagles instilled fear in many African teams, according to social activist Senator Shehu Sani.
Senator Sani told Completesports.com that Nigerian Football has lost its traditional style from the age-grade teams to the Super Eagles because of the over-dependence on diaspora Nigerian players and those playing for foreign clubs.
“We must make radical changes in what we are doing now with our football otherwise we might become the laughing stock of other African countries who are investing and developing their leagues and football architecture. We have to return to the streets and schools which used to be the conveyors of our national teams,” the Kaduna-born activist advised during an exclusive chat with Completesports.com.
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“Our Super Eagles lost in the final of AFCON 2023 playing defensive football which is new to us. Nigeria has always been a team that uses skills and speed to wear down our opponents before finishing them but the reverse is the case now as other African countries are the ones showing us how to play good football. We must go back to our old traditional style of play to dominate Africa again.”
He added: “I also want to advocate for the NFF to engage six coaches in six zones of the country to select talents and build a team from each zone to come and play each other in Abuja for the national senior coaches to harness the players picked from play-offs. By so doing, we won’t be over depending on foreign-based players.”
He praised President Bola Tinubu for rewarding the Super Eagles players and officials for the Silver medal feat at AFCON 2023, adding that the team deserved the honour.
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“The awards will prompt them to greater performance and encourage the other national teams to be good ambassadors,” Senator Sani posited.
Senator Sani however frowned at the proliferation of football academies in Nigeria urging the NFF to ensure that they are real Academies that combine schooling with football and devoid of corruption that has marred good selections for the national teams.
By Richard Jideaka Abuja
10 Comments
God bless you sir, you just hit the nail on it’s head. school/grassroot development of our football is the only answer to the growth of our league locally and the source of real talents that will dominate the World tomorrow. Besides,it will bring back crowd to our stadiums round the country to watch our local league matches. The Nigerian football administrators are all lazy and very corrupt, they are the ones that abandoned grassroot development by taking football out of schools in Nigeria. And no one is taking them to task, our sports journalist have all become praise singers because they all aspire to become spoke persons or assistant this or that to the minister or Nff President, commissioners etc. It is a shame
@Frank Smith has Osimhen and Boniface not be considered as dominating the world?????…… I really think having 2 players in the top 10 attackers can be considered as dominating the world dont you what of placing 8th in Ballon DO’r awards????…. or leading your team to winning a bundesliga in years a league that Bayern Dominates a league that is known as a farmer league because of Bayern yet the nartive is changing because of Bayer mainly down to Boniface Perfromances. both these players have not kicked a ball in our local league NPFL they come from the academies.
The begining of Wisdom is realising that our ball will remain good becuase of our Academies our Dual Nationals and our Youth National teams we will always produce world beaters the likes of Awoniyi and Gift Orban also came from the Academies so too Wilfred Ndidi and I can go on and on Iheanacho all international aclaimed stars that have never kicked a ball in NPFL Ademola Lookman same thing Samuel Chukwueze should I go On, Umar Sadiq, John Obi Mikel.. SO please you people should stop being so Gullable and eating everything corrupt officials spew for their own personal interest thats where the problem lies.
Nigeria just needs to accept our strengths and stop being sentimental Osimhen is still very much a Lagocian Agbero Lol so to is Boniface lol so, I do not knwo what this they are not Nigerian enough mumu mentality comes from. This is the definition of Shooting yourselves in the foot I always speak off.
Nigeria Problem is Simple NFF stop Hawrding Monies and pay for A GOOD COACH For GOODNESS SAKE. Algeria is investing in Swiss ex national team coach who will be looking for A salary similar to what he is paid by Swiss FA yet Algeria is willing to sacrifice to get him for the betterment of thier team now if Nigeria goes for a make shift coach so they dont have to pay becuase they want to pocket some funds then why should GOD favour Nigeria if Algeria plays Nigeria in a knockout tournament???? Tell ME!
NPFL Needs a better structure to root out the Age Cheaters, Keep the best players in the league improve the infrastructure stop the Culture of Bribery and Sentiments. then we will have a better league also Logistics is important. We can not year in year our keep trying to foster and push this same mentality into our Senior International mens team Super Eagles note NB key word being INTERNATIONAL.
and again when Enyimba won Back to Back tournaments in early 2000’s that was the opportunity to grow from strength to strength when the world’s eyes was on our league but this triumph like everything in Nigeria set about a series of bad Management and events that Nigerians Know All to well. Everybody wanted a piece of the Enyimba Pie they saw this as the opportunity to make mouth and say Giant of Africa bla bla bla forgetting that Giant of Africa is not by mouth yet by Planned And executed Action
They saw Enyimba triumph as an opportunity to sell the best players and benefit from thier sale. They saw it as an opportunity for some sort of corruption or the other. Instead of using that as a spring board for success and instead of Clubs to look up to Enyimba and try to imitate what they did but, ego’s Tirbalism will never allow for such in Nigeria.
It just like how I laugh when Some Nigerians delusionaly state that we should employ Emenike or Oliseh because Senegal is triumphing with thier ex international Cisse forgeting that Tribalism, Sentiment and Quota system is not Rife in Senegal it is not thier way of doing things. Also Senegal does not deluded themselves by imposing thier local players on Thier national team they rather let them take the better path through CHAN GO FIGURE THEY ARE DEFENDING CHAMPIONS LET THEM KEEP WINNING WHILE Nigerian fans keep eating rubbish thrown at us by people like this senator
@ Ugo Iwunze
good contribution. God bless you. What we need is good coach and competition between those playing abroad and the local if the local league players improve and meet up the standard. we also need a pro-active NFF and not corrupt NFF as we have mow. Our local players need to prove themselves with CHAN competition and the best selected to compete with the professionals for a place in the Super Eagles. There must be transition from U17 to U20 to U23 to CHAN Eagles and then Super Eagles except in the case of exceptional players.
@mr shehu sani national assembly need radical revolution to stop Nigerians from suffering we must make changes otherwise Nigerians will die in hunger.
He’s not a member on the NA. That’s long gone
I don’t understand what he’s talking about , choose six coaches, select best players in the league and after a match for the SE they are off to Cyprus , before you know it will become a scheme and someone will turn a millionaire through it, we gave bunch of talented players all over Europe and there’s nothing wrong in relying on them.
Greed and corruption has transformed what should be a simple process into a very complex one.
Just select the best players for Nigeria, wherever they may be found. If this simple principle is followed, it’s so easy. If all our best players are home based, use them. If they are all foreign based, use them. If some are home based and others foreign based, INVITE ONLY THE BEST 2 OR 3 FOR EACH POSITION.
However, when the collection of bribes and sharing of players’ match bonuses BECOMES THE PRIORITY, when so called administrators are looking to become player agents so they can make money from player transfers, THEN THE PROCESS BECOMES VERY COMPLICATED.
Shehu Sanni…..This is not your area of expertise…. You do not make any sense….Corruption is what is killing us and it has killed our football….Address the corruption and please stop talking shit…..