By Ime Bassey

Former Flying Eagles Coach, Ben Duamlong has attributed the failure of the national U-23 team to the poor structure of the country’s football as he blamed the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF for not allowing its coaches stay long on the job to allow for synergy.

“The issue is simple, our football structure is faulty and it did not just happen over night but over a period of time. It is rather unfortunate that we will not be part of any of the football parties next year.

It is a pity but there is nothing we can do about it now. The blame game going on now will not solve the problem.

“Our major issue today is the lack of continuity. We always approach things in a fire brigade manner and it has not helped us in any way. Until we address this, our football will not go anywhere.

“All the time we recorded successes at the senior level, we had suffered painful losses. The 1980 Nations Cup squad started after we lost in the final of the 1973 All African Games, same for the Clemens Westerhof’s golden squad of 1994. They lost the 1990 World Cup ticket to Cameroon but he was allowed to continue and we all celebrated their victory in Tunisia in 1994,” Duamlong said.