A former FIFA/CAF Instructor, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde, has identified lack of proper football development programme (FDP) as major factor hindering soccer development in the country.
Onigbinde said this on Tuesday in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, following the 2-3 defeat of the Golden Eaglets by Cote d’ Ivoire, in the final of WAFU B Under-17 Championship.
He said that football would continue to suffer setback in the country until the NFF leadership developed a master plan for identifying and nurturing talents.
Onigbinde commended the Golden Eaglets for their display at the under-17 championship in Togo, but noted that their best wasn’t good enough to remain on top.
“Did the team deliberately allow three goals to be scored against them before coming from behind to score their two goals?
“We are talking about football. Some few months ago, we (Super Eagles) were leading a team (Sierra Leone) 4-0 and the team came and levelled up.
“We have a major problem in the country and it is lack of proper football development programme.
“This is a country greatly endowed with football talents but we are not even identifying the talents, not to talk of developing them.
“So, how can you build something on nothing? What is our national strategy on football system? What system are we playing? If none, then it means we are not serious with football.
“For this reason, we have to accept any result that comes our way because we are going into matches and competitions with open chances rather than deliberate efforts to make a mark,” Onigbinde said.
According to him, the continuous losses recorded in the country’s football means that all is not well with the system, especially the inability to have grassroots sport programmes.
He explained that the country was able to conquere the world, even when there was no MRI testing for players.
“Scrutiny at those times we won under-17 championships was not as serious as it is now; there was no MRI then.
“We know the type of players we were fielding those days. The systems we had then were completely different from what we have now,” Onigbinde said.
He stated that he had visited more than 40 African countries analyzing and developing football with FIFA and CAF but that he had not seen a country well-endowed like Nigeria.
Onigbinde, therefore, urged football administrators in the countryto wake up and re-strategise to avoid making mockery of our football system, which had produced quality players in the past.
“If a team in position one before suddenly moved to position three, such a team is definitely down.
“There is nothing bad for someone to be down; what matters is how determined you are to come up again. This is what I have been talking about for decades now,” Onigbinde added.
