By Esther Egbe
Coach Emmanuel Ndubuisi, South Africa based, recently had a chat with Salient Times Newspaper stating that he is unhappy with Nigerians for not doing well in Football.
I am very worried about our local teams in Nigeria not doing well in the continental stages. Like the CAF champions League and CAF confederation cup etc.
I remembered back in old days when our mighty Enyimba FC was always on the spot light. And some few other clubs also did well but the question now is what happened?
Now my question is why is it that no Nigeria local teams are doing well in currently in the continental stages for the past years?
Rangers FC,was the NPFL champion but they are now out of the CAF champions League and Enyimba FC is currently struggling in the CAF confederation cup.
Meanwhile, I would say that are number of factors that could be hindering them from doing well.
First our league is very poor,bad officiating and poorly organized,where some referees are not fare in carrying out their duties.
The referees are the final decision makers in football games in which their decisions are respected. I have watched some few highlights or match review of some Nigerians referees and I can vividly tell us that they are among the ones that are killing our league/football.
You look at some of their decision you ask yourself,is this ref truly understand the game at all. They are so incorrect or false in most of their decision or in most cases a penalty supposed to be awarded to a particular team but they will intentionally ignore it etc. this is killing our football and making our league to be less interesting and will never attract any form of sponsorship.
Another factor is lack of equipments,in professional football or let me say in professional clubs. There should be a complete football equipments to enable the coaches to do their jobs well. For example,there is a time in the training where coach requires each player to have his ball and not to share one ball for two players etc. Or in most cases you see that clubs are using equipments that are outdated things like that and this is really affecting the coaches from doing their jobs well.
Poor management both the club’s and the League management of Nigeria.
Poor infrastructures, this is a very big problem in top football teams. Most clubs home ground is not playable. Some used artificial grass,which is not suitable in hot areas like our country. And most of the field lack proper maintenance, example the grass. If the field is not good definitely it will affects the game and players will not play well. I see some fields in our NPFL clubs I say to myself this is totally unprofessional and something has to be done urgently.
No good or access roads linking teams to their various ground. This is another biggest challenge in our football league. I see some many times in the group where post about accident usually happens to team bus and most times attacked by bandits on their way to the game or returning back.
Lack of sponsorship towards clubs. This is where most clubs make their money but ours is nothing to show. In this case there is no way our league would ever attract sponsorship unless the right thing is done. Let’s not forget that sponsors are there to make money as much as they sponsor the league. They need to get back whatever they spent and make their own profits.
Coaching methodology. I think this is among the biggest problem that makes our local clubs not be doing well in the continental stages.
Yes,most of the coaches are yes indeed highly qualified in quote. This qualifications is mostly on the paper aspect like CAF B,A LICENCE etc. But to me I think most of them doesn’t not have the core working experiences. Yes it is one thing to get the certificate but another thing entirely to get the required experience.
How do you get experience,by working under a coach higher than you for a period of time to enable you to learn the ropes.
Certificate is not just enough, is part of it but still needs more and quality experience.
Coaching from lower league coming up and building your experience bit by bit helps you to be there. There is no shortcuts in coaching,trace most of the successful coaches success you see is not by shortcuts. For example Zidane after his qualifications he has to observe Mourinho after which he started working with Ancelotti this requires a lot of process and patient.
Most times I watched videos of some of our local teams Coach drills or training sessions.
When I see what they do I said this team is still far behind based on their training sessions and to be honest such training is very low to top teams of their calibre.
You cannot be coaching a top team playing in top football league in Nigeria with such an Academy training session and you expect the team to do well in the continental stages.
Is not possible, Coaching is what you put in is what you expect,teams played according to our they are trained.
Every coach or upcoming coaches should consider an internship or apprenticeship. This will help him or her gain experience,they shouldn’t say I am an ex player or I have CAF A or UEFA certificate etc. Why does young graduate doctors go through internship before they set out for their own? Is for experience sake.
I think we are still behind and something serious has to be done in order to be able to compete outside our local league.
Furthermore,I urge the NFF or League management to help our league to grow. I strongly believe the NFF should do more and not only doing more when it comes to our national teams but also play a big role to boost our local league to grow.
In conclusion, what do we need to do? Simple,let’s look at what other countries doing or did. For example Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa and Tanzania.
Take Tanzania for example what they did currently in their league or football as a whole. You could see there is a big changes and is paying for them now.
Let’s look at what this people did and do same, some of them brought experts to help build their league,if they can do that we can do much better and we have what it takes to do so.
