Uzokwe To NFF: Go Back To The Grassroot

Evans Uzokwe has tasked the Nigeria Football Federation to strengthen the mechanism for development of players at the grassroots level in order to make the national team have more players from home.


He specifically wants academicals football to be made a top priority. He said academicals football must not be reduced to something that gets mere mention once in a year as the case is right now. He recalled that football used to be vibrant in schools across the country because there was a strong competition for academicals.

He said gifted players would continually be recruited into clubs until they were ripe for international assignment.

“These Days there is so much talk about football academies but we have no mechanism in place to monitor and control these to ensure what happens inside them are relevant to our needs.

“However, with Academicals football in place as in the 1970’s the rivalry between states produced most of the players that made the national teams., the sky is the limit because within the time that players passed through tests and competitions of varying degrees and categories, those with rare qualities would emerge once more for the national teams such as under-20 when it was introduced and the senior team.”