By Kate Obodo & Ime Bassey

Former Captain of the  1985 FIFA /JVC  U-16 World Cup winning  squad Nduka Ugbade  says Nigeria need to  develop her football at  grassroots if they want to improve .

According to him, focus should be  on the development of soccer academies across the country. With the recent  flop of the senior national team at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Ugbade said the failure of the national teams especially at the senior level was due to the absence of well structured grassroots football development programme. Adding that Nigeria need a good  administrator to manage her football.

“Grassroots development is the  bedrock of all sports, so the future of the game remains at the grassroots. There are lots of things that we need to put right if we must grow. The most important of all are first, administration,  we must try to change our mind on the way we organize things generally. Also  ensure that those decision that we make is  based on a wise choice.

Secondly, going  back to the grassroots, we find that most of our players that did well at the junior level don’t go beyond that level. When you expect them to mature to the senior team, they are not there.

Unless we are able to stop this problem where over_aged players are featured at the U_17 and U_20 levels, the senior national team would continue to have problems.

When asked of his  kind of coach for Super Eagles, Ugbade  said an indigenous coach that is technically sound should head the Super Eagles.“Any Nigeria coach that is technically sound and very discipline with a  sound knowledge of the game”, he said.