BY KATE OBODO

Former coach of Heartland Football Club of Owerri, Kelechi Emeteole has said that the Aminu Maigari-led Board of the Nigeria Football Federation, (NFF) and Nigeria Premier League, owed Nigerians the turn around of football fortunes after the national teams failed to qualify for any major competition holding next year.

Emeteole, who blamed the recent slide in the country’s football on the poor structure of the Nigeria Premier League, stated that Nigeria would have been saved from the bad results if the people at the helm of affairs had developed the local league.

He recalled when players from the local league like Daniel Amokachi, Rashidi Yekini, Finidi George among others made the Super Eagles team and did the country the league then was at its peak.

According to him, “ I believe the NFF and the NPL owe Nigerians a lot to make football great again. How do you think we would succeed when the local league is nothing to write home about?

A poor league be-gets bad players. And I think our failure starts from the fact that we failed to develop the local league, that is why we have been having problems here and there.

A league where players, coaches and even referees are being owed, how do you think things will be good? If you do not have money to bribe, you can not win the league. Look at all the teams that played in the continent, none of them exhibit true professionalism.

Eighty per cent of the players in the Egyptian national team are local players and they are doing tremendously well in competitions. That is because they have a strong team built on local players. We have to act fast and apply that to our league if we must succeed.

I blame the people managing our league, from amateur, pro-league, national league to the premier league. When you do not take care of players and the structure on ground is not sound, how will you succeed. The system is entirely bad, both the NFF and NPL. We really need people who have vast knowledge of football to manage the affairs,” he concluded.