Sports
Technical Director Tasks Academies On Unified Policy Framework
The Technical Director,
Association of Proprietors of Football Academies of Nigeria (APFAN), Solomon Adesina on Wednesday stressed the need for academies to produce young players at the grassroots under a unified policy framework.
Adesina told newsmen in Lagos that the association had no fewer than 120 grassroots football academies spread across the country.
He said that discovery of players at the right age and nurturing them through academies would help to curb age cheating in Nigerian football.
“We are in the business of producing young players through organising coaching clinics and football camps in conjunctions with state football associations and the Nigeria Football Federations (NFF).
“We work with all academies because majority of them have the coaching capacity but lack the support to discover players that can fit in fast into the National age grades teams.
“We intend to achieve this by organising several coaching clinics and football competitions yearly to impute the technicalities in discovering players and nurturing them to stardom,” Adesina said.
He added that the association had achieved so much over the four years of its existence.
“As a body, we had organised the Olufemi Adebayo Football Championship in honour of the late ex-intemational.
“We want to drive the passion of grassroots football toward bring out the best in our young players at the right age, and co-opting them promptly into the scheme of things.
“That is why we organise a football championship that involve no fewer than 120 academies which run for two months.
“These young players mainly in the age brackets of 16 and 20 years are given the opportunity to showcase their talents.
“Some of them previously discovered are now in the national U-17 team,” he said.
Adesina called on corporate bodies to partner with the association toward securing the future of the youth through football.
“We will also like to call on sponsors who solely organise youth competitions, such as the Airtel Rising Stars football Academy and others, to key into these development programmes of the association.
“With that, we can have a yearly unified grassroots football competition and camps, where young players can be in a pool.
A well-known football pundit in the State, Chief Christopher Okonkwo has lauded the efforts and vision of the Super Eagles Coach Eric Chelle for going from one venue of the Nigeria Domestic Nigeria Professional Football League match to the other in monitoring Nigerian players, with a view to invite some exceptional good one discovered into the main stream of the Super Eagles team.
Okonkwo, who made the commendation in an interview at the Port Harcourt Club recently, described the positive move by Coach Chelle as a good step in the right direction, noting that the practice was how its been done in the past among any contracted coach assigned to tinker the Super Eagles team.
“Truly, it has been an old tradition in the country seeing any newly engaged Coach to lead the National team, visiting some our Nigeria League venues during the league matches to spot light some good talents that could be used to beef up some grey areas in the department of Eagles team”
He, however, frowned at the current situation where our coaches had continously been over depending on the use of foreign based players during invitation of players to the National camp, thereby, relegating the domestic home based league players to the background as if they have nothing much to offer to the team.
“I can vividly recall that the likes of great players in the mode of Finidi George, Taribo West, Kanu Nwankwo, Austin Okocha, Richard Owobokiri, Emmanuel Osuigwe among others started from Nigeria football league before they graduated to play in Europe through which they later invited to Super Eagles camp to represent Nigeria”
“Besides, I’m also of the view that going to secondary school football competitive games could equally serves as a a good platform to discover budding talents that could be nurtured to become great stars in near future”, Okonkwo frankly added.
Okonkwo, therefore, prayed that any football coach to be engaged by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to tinker the Super Eagles should be told not to confine himself in staying in big hotel alone but to be visiting some of our local league match venues, with a view to discover some good players that can be drafted into the Super Eagles team.
“Indeed, I stand to be challenged that there some young good players in the Nigeria Professional League. If spotted and exposed, could give the some of the invited foreign based players a stiff competitive fight in securing a postion in the team”, Okonkwo emphatically stated.
Ezechukwu, one of the youngest members of the Nigerian contingent at the championship in Ghana, said her ambition was to win the 100m title in style and cap it with a new personal record.
The fresh secondary school graduate explained that she is fully focused on contributing to Team Nigeria’s medal hopes and is determined to deliver strong performances across her events.
“My main objective in Ghana is to clinch the 100m title and the 4×100m,” Ezechukwu told Tidesports source.
“Nigeria can be assured of my very best and my commitment to the Team. I would love to set a new personal best in Ghana, but anything that comes, I will take it. The spirit in the team is high, and I think we are ready to go,” she said.
Ezechukwu, who was part of Nigeria’s women’s 4x100m relay squad at the World Relays in Botswana, said the experience gained from that competition has strengthened her mindset heading into the continental championships.
She admitted that she learned valuable lessons from her previous outing, including a difficult moment during the relay where an early error affected the team’s rhythm, but said she has used the experience to improve her discipline and composure.
“The secret is just being disciplined, training hard and trusting my coach and believing in God, and the result will show,” she added.
The teenager is part of a 41-member Nigerian team comprising 24 female and 17 male athletes competing at the championships, which begin today at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Nigeria are expected to compete across multiple track and field events as they aim for a strong finish against the continent’s elite athletes.
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