Olalekan Okusan
Technical Director of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Bitrus Bewarang, said he was worried about the inability of Nigeria’s football talents to rise to the top of their career.
The former Super Eagles’ assistant coach blamed this ugly trend on the coaches’ sentiment during selection of players for age-grade competition.
Speaking at the online session with Football Coaches Association of African Nations (FCAAN) at the weekend , Bewarang said the win-at-all-cost-syndrome at age grade level had forced coaches to feature players at their prime that soon fizzle out when profit on investment is expected.
“I will tell you this is where I feel bad about our football, FIFA are not happy in this our achievements, they monitor African teams at these levels and they are watching to see how our players grow to play in our senior team and join top clubs in Europe,” he said. “Most of us don’t know that at the end of each of these FIFA competitions, technical reports are written.”
He however blamed this on the sentiment of coaches in players’ selection. “Stop being corrupt please as most coaches are building bad teams as result of taking money from players and managers to drop good players for mediocre.”
To unravel talents in the local league, he recommended that a technical director should be picked by the League Management Committee (LMC), whose sole duty is to help in discovering home grown players for CHAN Eagles which will further translate.
“If I have my way, I will create a position for an assistant technical director for LMC with sole duty of hunting for talents for our CHAN Eagles,” he counseled.
He lauded FCAAN for giving opportunity to Nigerian coaches to update their knowledge.
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