Former Super Eagles’ winger, Oladimeji Mohammed Lawal has buttressed the need for better facilities in Nigeria to boost the grooming of future football stars, Sports247 reports.
The former Shooting Stars of Ibadan and Compostela of Spain fleet-footed star stressed that Nigerian youngsters will not grow without the presence of good infrastructure, hence his charge for better attention to facilities.
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He averred, “We need to see better facilities and more investments. That’s what we really need to move our football forward in this country.
“It’s not proper to turn an abandoned building into a school. The same applies to football and sports in general. They need new structures.”
Lawal also took a swipe at the current trend in which Nigerian officials, administrators and coaches try to get the best out of raw talents in the country without providing good sports structures that would augment their natural abilities.
“All these things are not done with magic. When there are no facilities, there is no way you can develop talents. We are already blessed with natural talents, but that’s not enough.
“We must mould them, build them and expose them to become champions. It’s one thing to have talents and another to mould them into champions.”
The Canada 1997 FIFA U17 World Cup revelation concluded with a rhetorical question about the possibility of Nigeria getting new stars for the future, as he asked: “How do you do that when you don’t have facilities?”
