As the Super Eagles’ camp opens this Monday without any home-based player in the final list of 23 invitees, a former defender in the squad, Eric Ejiofor, believes the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL) needs improvements for its products to become relevant.
Sports247 reports that the only home-based lad who had initially been named in a provisional list of 31 players was 15-year-old goalkeeper Ebenezer Ifeanyi Harcourt, who features for Sporting Lagos FC in the lower cadre Nigerian National League (NNL) – not the NPFL.
However, with Harcourt eventually left out of the final roster, in order for him to concentrate on preparing for the FIFA U20 World Cup with the Flying Eagles, Ejiofor reasoned that low quality in the domestic league makes it impossible for home-based players to get spots in the Eagles.
Ejiofor, who played for Asaba United, Katsina United, Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) of Ibadan and Enyimba of Aba during his heyday, with 14 Eagles’ caps to his name, reasoned further that improvements are needed in basic matters concerning Nigeria’s domestic football set-up.
He posited, “We need to go back to the basics, and our league needs improvements. We need to work on our league. If you look at other African countries’ leagues, all of them have overtaken us already. Our league is not really improving, and that’s having effects on the players.”
The 45-year-old Ejiofor, who also starred for Maccabi Haifa and FC Ashdod of Israel as well as Enosis of Cyprus, added many other factors he believes are lacking in the NPFL, then suggested better efforts in youth development among many solutions he believes are needed to turn things around.
He added, “There are no two ways about it, we need to go back to the grassroots. We need to develop our league, and our management too has to get better.
“They all need to improve themselves. The coaches, too, need to improve themselves; not only the players. The coaches and the league management need improvements.”
The former hard as nails centre back concluded with a hint that the NPFL would get better and the home-based Eagles will be stronger once players are given better welfare packages that should encourage them to stay longer at home, rather than go abroad in droves.
“We need to improve our facilities. We need to improve the payment and welfare of our league’s players. Those things would motivate players to stay in the league and improve themselves,” Ejiofor theorised
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