Cash for spot in the youth teams of Nigeria is one scourge that has continued to stall the growth of youth football in Nigeria and sometimes robs the team of good players, that will bring about good performances.
A problem which has been with Nigerian football for ages has refused to go away, with a coach who handled one of the youth teams last year now under huge pressure to refund the money he was given to include a player in his team.
An aggrieved agent (names withheld) reached out to OwnGoalNigeria.com with documents of the financial transactions done with a youth team coach of Nigeria for his client to be in the squad for tournaments, but was later dropped.
We forwarded the details to the coach (names withheld) and he admitted to receiving the said funds from the agent, who works for a football agency but said it was for a different business entirely not related to including a player in his team.
He however confirmed that the agent sent three players to the camp who didn’t meet his requirements, hence weren’t included in the squad. He defended himself by saying if the money was for a player to be in his team, there is no way he wouldn’t have done that.
The amount involved is in foreign currency and it runs into over 13 million naira in Nigerian money. The agent has vowed to collect every penny of the money sent to the coach who is insisting that it is a case of a separate business, which went bad between them.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
