FIFA licensed soccer agent, Olawale Onipede, C E O Reigns Soccer Agency office based in Lisbon, Portugal, branches offices in Cairo, Egypt, Zambia, Mozambique, Mauritius and Nigeria has implored all Nigerian teams on the need for training methodologies and training of players when they are off the season, as this is what the league needs for massive improvement and to build fitness of athletes even while on break following the disruption of all sporting activities across the globe by the COVID-19 outbreak.
He revealed that although a handful of the players know these things and tried keeping fit a large number of them don’t know although some might know and already practicing it that’s why many of the Nigerian teams going for intercontinental games in the upcoming season won’t exceed expectations because many of those guys during the pandemic were not doing the right thing as a professional player and even the few who did wasn’t up to the standard.
Onipede said, “When you look at the nutrition of the players, their well being. You hear many of them complaining of salary, all those things contribute to the success of playing the continental games and many of these guys have to start again as they have lost match fitness, very rusty.”
“All these things must be put in place when you have a team and they are off the season, there are some training programs you send to the players and the players, in turn, must do it and when they resume the season, in the pre-season, you will be assured of their high performance. Many of these, our teams and players don’t have it so when a player is offseason, they just go and rest with their family and train once in a while with his team where they are picked up, things aren’t done that way, each player must have a program when they are off the season, this is where professionalism and technical tactics of the team and player comes in.”
“No team can tell you that they have a schedule or calendar of the season for their players and during the pandemic, this are what they should have done in every part of the day and the food nutrition guidelines because this is strictly business, I can tell you that other North African teams do this with their players even during this pandemic and they players do it that’s why they are doing well.”
On the cogent things that need to be done to improve the Nigerian League, he posits, “these are the criteria we want our Nigerian teams to emulate, give them programs and let the players give you evidence that they are doing it and a nutritionist guiding them when they are off the season with their families, it’s not a time to enjoy, there are so many things to talk about but when they visit the agency office, we will talk them through,” he concluded.
