By KATE OBODO

As the Flying Eagles  get set to lock horns with Cameroon  in the  final of the African Youth Championship in Johannesburg  today, former Chairman of Sharks Football Club of Port Harcourt, Adokiye Amiesimaka, says Nigeria is still using over-aged players to prosecute age-grade competitions.

The former Green Eagles winger said he believes that all the players paraded by coach John Obuh are above 20 years and are therefore not supposed to take part in the competition, adding that it was regrettable that despite the expose he made in 2009 during the U-17 World Cup, the NFA has not learnt anything.

“The process for 2011 elections has been highly commended  for being very  credible.  There have been a dramatic turn around for the better, now we are getting there in politics but we are not getting there in sports. What do I mean?  I’m saying that in politics, it used to be very bad, talking about rigging and all that. In football it has been very bad and it is still very bad.

This is 2011, why do we keep deceiving ourselves. Stanley Okoro, for instance, has no business in that team which every body knows, he cannot be any thing less than 33 or 34. Olarenwaju Kayode was also  my player in the Sharks feeder team in 2002, he played alongside Fortune Chuwkudi,  both of them were  mates,  he too cannot be  less than 29 or 30. Abdul  Ajagun was one of the highest goal scorers in the league. He was also in Command Secondary School in Kaduna or so, he  dropped  out of school in SSS2  in the 1990s and so cannot be U-20.

Stanley Okoro

They have no business in that team, so why are we rejoicing and celebrating. We are not helping ourselves and our football, we are just cheating and ridiculing ourselves and then making nonsense of the whole thing.  Even if other countries are cheating, let them cheat because of their  ignorance, we know better than them.

Age grade teams are meant to help us develop a serious senior national team but we are not doing that. I passed through the age grade level, I played for my secondary school, played for the Lagos team in the National Sport Festival, I played for the national academical team, I played for the University and the senior national team. I went through a process and that is how it should be, that is the truth.