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The youth committee of Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) is preparing to make public its strategy to revive effective progress in the development of the round leather game.
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This was revealed at the weekend by the committee chairman and NFF board member, Alhaji Ganiyu Majekodunmi, who hinted at a return to “the way things used to be done”.
He admitted that Nigeria’s pedigree in youth football in Africa and the world is at an all-time low, which has now prompted his committee to look for immediate solutions.
He recalled how a well-designed and progressive approach to developing young players from secondary schools helped Nigeria emerge as winners of the first FIFA U-16 World Cup in China.
Nigeria won silver two years later when the competition was upgraded to U17 level in 1987, and the country has since claimed the trophy a record five times: 1985, 1993, 2007, 2013 and 2015.
Unfortunately, Nigeria failed to qualify for either the Cadet World Cup or the U-20 World Cup this year, raising a lot of concern among youth football lovers and the brain trust of the NFF youth committee are now frantically searching for answers.
Majekodunmi, who is also the chairman of the Ogun State Football Association, admitted that the situation has become quite critical and stated that everyone must be on board to change the narrative.
He added: “There is no turning back. We must move our youth football forward and we must return to where we belong.”
“Nigeria was the first country to win the U-16 World Cup, then in China, now U-17.
“There is a way we did it. We developed our football from the schools. We invited students and kept them in the camp, playing a series of friendlies, even before the qualifiers started. That is what we want to bring back.”
“We have put our minds together and that is what we want to do now. The changes will soon start to be reflected and everyone will see it.”
“We have to do it differently, change the way we have been doing it. For this to work, we all have to join forces. We all have to work together to get back to that point.”
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