George Aluo
Unlike some two decades back when countries like Belgium, France, Spain and England were the destinations of Nigerian home-based players, moving Overseas to play professional football, today most of the players end up in the backyard of Europe and Asia. Even landing there is even for those who are lucky, as a good number of the players now end up in East and Central African countries like Tanzania, Angola and Uganda. Why are Nigerian players no longer in hot demand? Why are they no longer on the shopping list of top European clubs? Why are they ending up in countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Uzbekistan?
Former Poland-based Super Eagles midfielder, Ifeanyi Ekwueme, who spoke exclusively to The Nigerian Xpress Sports, answered these million-naira questions.
Without mincing words, Ekwueme heaped the major problem on the Nigerian league, which he described as “poor in standard and lowly rated, even in Africa.”
He pointed out that some years back, the highest goal scorer in the Nigerian league would have been heading to a place like Spain or France, but the story is different right now.
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“Junior Lokosa, who finished as top scorer last season, has only managed to sign for Esperance of Tunisia after undergoing several trials in different parts of Europe. In my days, under Joe Erico, I was playing for NEPA FC in Lagos when I got a call up to the Super Eagles. I opted to play in Poland with offers, coming from other clubs in Holland and France.”
Ekwueme, a member of the Super Eagles that won bronze at Tunisia 2004 Nations Cup, said the nation’s soccer governing body, NFF, was paying too much attention to the senior national team, the Super Eagles, to the detriment of the league.
“All that everybody in the FA back home is talking about is Super Eagles. They pay little or no attention to the league and without a strong league our football won’t go anywhere. Today, the Tunisian and Egyptian leagues are the top in Africa. You can see it with the performance of their teams in the continent. Nobody reckons with the Nigerian league. It is even a miracle that Lobi got to the group stage of the CAF Champions league. A club that emerged champions from a season that was not concluded could not have performed any miracle in Africa.”
Continuing, Ekwueme stated: “As a player of the defunct Jasper United, we always had a full house of fans at Rojenny Stadium, Oba, Anambra State. The club was making well over N3 million from gate takings way back in 2002, but today most of our league games are played in empty stadiums. The officiating has grown from bad to worse with clubs, relying on referees to win. These are the reasons our players are no longer on the radar of European scouts.”
He stressed that because the league is as poor as the economy, players are desperate to leave without waiting for good offers to come their way.
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“When the domestic league was competitive, players remained at home but now, everybody is in a hurry to play outside irrespective of where the offer is coming from. The nation’s economy is also not helping matters. Is it not better for a player to go to Sudan and earn $5000 a month rather than stay a home to earn N500,000 which is not up to $2000 at the current exchange rate?”
The Mbaise, Imo State-born ex-international, charged the NFF to come up with rules that would make the league better, as that is the only way to make Nigerian football and her players attractive once more.
“Nigerian clubs must have structure and a long term plan. What the clubs do now is just use money to buy trophy without putting any structure in place. That has to stop. This is not how clubs run in Europe. We must build structures. We must make our playing turfs better…officiating has to be good and the clubs must be well funded. This was what it was like years back,” Ekwueme said.