The General Secretary of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Sanusi Mohammed has revealed that no junior national team coaches under the employment of the football house will be allowed to bring in foreign-based players to fortify their squad to restore confidence in the domestic league.
Sanusi, who made this known in a chat, said the failure of the junior national teams in 2019 was due to less attention paid on our domestic competitions as well as activities of club’ agents who are more interested in marketing than developing the players.
He said the glasshouse would focus more on the league by ensuring strict compliance with the rules and regulations governing the game of football as no footballing nation would make an impact at youth competitions organized by CAF/FIFA without a sound domestic league.
“This year, we have a series of qualifiers at the youth level both male and female. We want to build the youth teams starting from U23 to U17 around our local players with less emphasis on foreign players.
Most of the nations that eliminated us from African qualifiers build their teams around their local players. So we must strengthen our league,” said Sanusi.
He further stated that the board of NFF is working on new policies towards restructuring the league in conjunction with League Management Company (LMC).
He said: “with what we are working on now, our league will be better and attractive starting from this year.
It is our dream to make it better than the South African League where our national teams will benefit and reduce the desire of our youth players seeking greener pasture overseas.”
The Kebbi-born football administrator admitted that 2019 was a difficult year for the glasshouse where the federation recorded low marks in its participation for international competitions but believed that 2020 will be a better year for the round leather game.
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