The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has instituted a new process for the selection of players into the U17 team of Nigeria, effectively barring players born abroad and those playing for foreign teams from the team, OwnGoalNigeria.com can exclusively reveal.
In the past lot of players born abroad or playing for foreign teams have taken out time to trial out with the youth teams of Nigeria. The last time Nigeria campaigned at the U17 World Cup, the goalkeeper of the team Daniel Jinadu was a player of English Premier League side West Ham.
That will no longer be the base as the NFF has now drawn up a new process for the selection of players into the U17 team of Nigeria, and it favours only players based in Nigeria playing for local academies or youth teams owned by league sides.
President of the NFF Ibrahim Musa Gusau made this known in Abuja while speaking in a FIFA organized seminar for youth team players development.
He explained that henceforth players selection will be done though a youth tournament across the zones in Nigeria and any player who wish to be a part of the
“Before NFF will invite any child to the National U-17 camp, we must know the ability of the child, whether he is capable or not,” Gusau was quoted as saying by www.totorinews.com.
“This can only happen through the various U-17 tournaments that will be organised from the states to zonal and the national.
“We are going to select U-17 players from these developmental tournaments across Nigeria.
“Also the youth tournaments from NLO and the NPFL. The NPFL will organise youth tournaments for their U- 17 teams and that is how the NFF will select talented young Nigerian footballers to play for the National U- 17 teams.
“If you hear that the NFF will be organizing U-17 developmental tournaments in your states and you have talented young footballers, make sure they participate because that is the only place we will identify them.
“NFF will not admit any kid on invitation to come to Abuja without participating and getting recommendations from these tournaments,” he concluded.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman