Kehinde Adeyemi, the only English Football Association trained in Nigeria has condemned the outgoing NFF for not setting standards for the numerous football academies existing in Nigeria, saying the in-action has been having negative effects on the performance of Nigerian players during foreign trials.
He, however, appealed to the in-coming NFF executives to create a department that will be in charge of establishing and monitoring football academies in Nigeria so that the nation can be producing players not only in quantity but in quality.
Adeyemi who doubles as the Director of Sports, Olabisi Onabanjo University made these calls while addressing some grassroots coaches in an event in Ogun State, where he stressed that recent findings have shown why most Nigerian players fail in their trials abroad.
He explained that “most of our players have talents but they lack football intelligence unlike their counterparts in other parts of the world. Modern football training, especially from the academy level must include sessions for mental and intelligence training in what they teach the wards”.
The Football Psychologist averred that “in Nigeria today, there are so many football academies spread across the nooks and crannies of the country, however, more than 90% of them are substandard compared to what operates in other parts of the world.
“Anybody can just wake up one day and set up a football academy with the aims of producing and selling players without considering and providing the necessary and compulsory factors for effective functioning of the football academies and still, nobody or organisation in Nigeria cares to know what the academies offer the innocent young boys and girls that want to choose playing football as their career”.
Adeyemi however defined an academy as a school for special training in art, sports, literature, science etc. He stated that “a football academy therefore must be conventional enough to have the following factors for its effectiveness; one is standard facilities and equipment, second is curriculum with clear syllabus (topics) the third is medical facilities, while the fourth one is availability of quality personnel’s”.
“Like I highlighted in one of my paper presentations to the coaches, ‘what do you teach and how do you teach these young Super Eagles of tomorrow’. It is one thing to know what to teach, it’s another thing entirely to know how to teach effectively.
The don, however, urged the in-coming NFF executives not to henceforth handle this department with kid-glove because it’s the foundation of any serious-minded football nation.
Packaged by Olanrewaju Agiri
