Jay Jay Okocha says football needs total restructuring

Former Nigeria international, Emmanuel Okocha has advised that for the Super Eagles to bounce back to reckoning, the Nigeria Football Association, NFA, should map out proper plans for the development of the game.

Okocha, a member of the Eagles squad at 1990 Africa Cup of Nations in Algeria told Saturday Vanguard sports in Lagos that the pressure on the coaches, players and administrators have made them to derail from the proper plans.

"There is a lot of confusion right from the Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup qualifying ,there was a lot of scores unsettled. We really need to come together and think of the way forward.

We have put a lot of pressure on both the coaches and players and I think we should all come together and ask ourselves the problem bedeviling the country's football and fashion out the way forward," he said.

Okocha, a former player of Rangers of Enugu hinted that since grassroots football was abandoned, the country has been finding it difficult to get talented players for all the national teams.

"I think we have lost the grassroots system, our league is in shambles. The stadia are full of empty seats, our infrastructure is nothing to write about .We need to restructure our league, if you remember when I was playing for the national team, ninety five percent of us were from the local league, so why can't we find some good players from our local league.

Why can't we promote some players in the Nigerian league so that we will have a lot to choose from and not always depend on the foreign based," he queried.

Concerning the new coach, Okocha argued that the NFA should look beyond the World Cup because the event was around the corner and Nigeria might not make any impact despite hiring a technical adviser.

Vanguard

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