BY JACOB AJOM
Former Nigerian international and chairman of the committee vested with the responsibility to set up the Nigerian Court of Arbitration for Sports, Adokiye Amiesimaka has said that the free fall the country’s football was witnessing was not as a result of poor coaching.

Instead, the former Green Eagles winger said there were very fundamental issues the administrators of the game in Nigeria had deliberately glossed over in an attempt to cut corners to success.

Reacting to the recent sack of Samson Siasia and the search for a replacement by the NFF on Ray Power fm, the respected former commissioner for Justice in Rivers State said, “it is not a coaching problem. Fact is we don’t have the materials to take us anywhere. The players are not there because we have failed to articulate a workable developmental programme for the growth of football in Nigeria”.

Adokiye said the country’s football administrators were failing in their functions as organisers and facilitators because there was nothing on ground upon which the game could grow.

“When we use over-aged players for age grade competitions you don’t expect people who are past their prime to excel. The structure is faulty. Until we put our house in order, we will continue to move in a circle, without really going nowhere.”

He recommended a comprehensive youth development programme as the way out of the present free fall Nigerian football has taken of late.