By Daily Sports on March 16, 2018

State FAs have been charged to revive grassroots football in Nigeria by coming up with good programs for local football in their states. This call was made by the chairman of Lagos-based Nath Academy grassroots football club, Yemi Idowu.

Following the failure of Nigeria to qualify for any FIFA age grade football competition last year, Idowu feels there is need for more aggressive efforts towards developing youth football in the country.

He said: “The Nigeria Football Federation has done a good job so far with the senior national teams but we need the states to meet up with their obligations. After we won the 2013 U-17 World Cup, we had the players from the tournament coming through to the senior national teams and we are excited about the team’s qualification for the World Cup. But we must not relax and believe that all is well.”

Idowu also tasked the NFF to do its part to ensure that the failure of our youth teams last year doesn’t repeat itself.

“We don’t have to relax hoping that we will assemble teams when we have competitions. Rather, we must start building now so that some of these players can make the senior national teams in three to five years time. If we don’t do this, it is another disaster waiting to happen,” he said.

Idowu’s Nath Boys sold Super Eagles midfielder Wilfred Ndidi to KRK Genk for £78,000 in 2015 in what represented one of the highest earning transfer fee for a grassroots club in Nigeria.

Source Daily Sports

Posted March 16, 2018

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